I have known many "volunteer" firemen in my lifetime, and I am always amazed at what makes them tick. I can't think of any volunteer job that is more demanding, much less more "life threatening." I've never met one who said "I was a volunteer fireman for a couple of years!" They all have years and years of training and firefighting and emergency experience. And it doesn't just stop with them. They all involve their wives and kids and anyone else they can get to participate. They spend a lot of time raising money for equipment and they do it with barbeques, bake sales, raffles and the like. And they love what they do. This story is a humorous one about a particular group of them that I love to tell. It's all true and none of it is exaggerated.
I was working at Lester Motors at the time and in fact, had only been there about a year.
This day was not your typical day in Central City. An "ice storm" had hit town hard the night before. An "ice storm" meant that it had rained and temperatures had plummeted to "single digits" overnight and into the next day. Things outside looked pretty normal but when you went to retrieve the morning paper, you had better watch out as you would slide clean out to the street before landing on your "gluteus maximus" (butt). The streets looked damp but clear. Actually they were extremely hazardous and the TV and radio stations were begging people to stay home except in the most serious of emergencies. If you had a scanner you would know that the airwaves were filled with accidents and mishaps throughout the county.
Somehow, I had managed to get to work that day. The streets were extremely slick and hazardous and a lot of fellow employees found it impossible to make the "trek" into town. Business was slow anyway so we could operate on a "skeleton crew." There was little traffic in town that day as most people heeded the warnings. The former A & P store across the street was now a "Big Star," another supermarket chain.
There was a little activity over there (people needed their bread and eggs and milk). Across First street, there was a pile of "rubble" left over from the burning down of Central City Lumber Company a few weeks earlier.
We had sold whatever vehicle was in the showroom the day before, so the showroom was basically empty. I spent a lot of time that morning drinking coffee and wandering back and forth between the "First Street" window and the "Morehead Street" window. There was little to do as shopping for cars was the farthest thing from most people's minds.
About 9 o'clock that morning, the siren atop the city building let off three long blasts. There was a fire somewhere. After the siren went off, you could hear other sirens in the distance, as various volunteer firemen climbed into their personal vehicles and headed for the station. Most of their personal cars and trucks had red lights and sirens just like the bigger vehicles they drove to the scene. I stepped over to the "Morehead" window, gazing down toward the fire department which was downstairs and on Morehead Street. These brave volunteers came in from all directions, slipping and sliding with their red lights and sirens "piercing" the morning air. They would then park these cars wherever they could in alleys and along the street as they headed inside the station to board a fire truck. They were also "slipping" and "sliding" and falling down as they tried to cross the ice. Central City had a brand new fire truck (about two months old) then and it was the "first responder." Three men got into the cab and two more climbed on the back. The truck pulled out and headed down Morehead toward First Street.
I didn't know it at the time but the "fire" was a fork lift that belonged to Central City Lumber Company. Although the building and most of the contents were destroyed by fire a few days earlier, they had set up a temporary office just down the street and brought in some more inventory and placed it on the empty lot across the alley. Although they were barely open....They were open! It seems that there was an electical fire on the fork lift and it was smoking pretty bad. The volunteers wanted to do all they could to prevent the fork lift from burning down and that's why this particular run was so important to them.
The new fire truck exited the building and attempted to speed toward the scene. It was impossible to get any traction on the ice but they "plugged" ahead as best they could. As I said, I was standing on the "Morehead Street" window near the corner. I glanced over my right shoulder and saw a small car coming down "First Street." It was a green Chevy Vega. I wasn't sure it even had a driver in it but upon closer inspection, I finally saw two eyes and a head of hair protruding just above the driver's window. I could see a collision at the intersection of First and Morehead between this tiny car and the massive fire truck was imminent.
I glanced back to the fire truck just as it was entering the intersection. The driver began to turn the steering wheel to the right but the large truck kept going straight. He applied the brakes but to no avail. The fire truck began slding into the intersection. My eyes quickly shot back over to the little Chevy Vega. The driver of that vehicle apparently saw the truck approaching the intersection and began "driving defensively." He pulled as far to his right as he could but to no avail. There just wasn't room for him and the fire truck both in the intersection and they collectively "kissed" at that point. This sent the vega careening down Morehead Street and the Fire Truck came to a rest on the southwest corner of Morehead narrowly missing a major utility pole but hitting a steep bank before coming to a halt. The rear end of the fire truck was about ten feet out into the intersection. Fortunately we could tell no one was hurt.
Two of the firemen that were on the back of the fire truck jumped off and began to run back to the fire station to pick up another fire truck in order to complete the run. The three in the cab rushed over to the driver of the Vega to be sure he wasn't injured (which he wasn't). The two guys attempting to "run" back to the station in full gear kept slipping and falling down and falling over each other. This went on for what seemed like ten minutes (which was actually about a minute) and even though it was a serious situation, I couldn't control my laughing.
Once again, I stepped over to the "Morehead Street" side of the showroom so I could see what happened with the second responder. By this time some more volunteers had made their way to the station and knew what had happened, so they began to "crank up" the second truck. The second truck was the former first truck, a 1964 GMC that sounded like it had no muffler. I could hear it running even though I was a half-block away from the station and indoors. Lester's happened to have a sales office directly across from the garage doors of the fire department and I could see the salesmen down there gathered at the window witnessing the same thing I was. Directly in front of this sales office was a fair sized tree and it was the only one in town that, for some unknown reason, still had most of it's leaves on it.
Soon the old GMC pulled out of the station. The driver knew there was a problem as the other fire truck had the intersection blocked so he'd have to take a different route to the lumber company, a distance of about two blocks. There was an alley that run between Lester Motors and the City Building. It made for an extremely sharp turn but he knew it was the quickest "other way" to the scene. Again, there were three men in the cab and two on the back, all in full gear (full gear meant the traditional firefighter's hat, a heavy pair of pants held by heavy duty suspenders, a coat that probably weighs 50 lbs. and protective boots that reach to the knees).
As the truck pulled out, the driver cut the wheel sharply to the right and "showered on the gas." I knew this because the truck didn't have a muffler. This caused the rear end to slide around and "hit" the tree in front of Lester's sales office which also caused two other phenomonon...the first throwing the two firemen on the back of the truck off and the second to knock all of the leaves off of the tree, burying both the firemen and the entire tail end of the firetruck. Remarkably, no one was injured and soon you could see the two firemen "scrambling" from the pile of leaves to regain their positions on the "already moving" fire truck. This time it bolted out of sight and proceeded down the alley. I knew this because it had no muffler. I couldn't see it but I could still hear it as it's siren blared and engine roared toward the scene.
Quickly, I rushed back over to the "First Street" window where I could see the lumber company. I looked down the street toward Reynolds Street. The old fire truck exited the alley onto Reynolds (behind First Federal Savings and Loan), turned left onto Reynolds and because it was unable to slow down on the ice, crossed Reynolds at a high rate of speed for the conditions. At the point where it crossed Reynolds into the driveway of the lumber company, the road drops sharply at about a thirty five degree angle. The truck went slightly airborne and dipped out of sight. For a moment there was silence, then a couple of seconds later I heard this "Ka-Boom," and saw a pile of lumber go airborne. They had finally arrived at the scene but to their dismay, one of the firemen from the first accident scrambled down there on foot while all of this other action was going on and determined the fire to be the forklift's electrical system and quickly pulled one of the battery terminals off, thereby stopping the fire.
Damage to the new fire truck was estimated at about $30,000 (a tidy sum in 1973), another $2,000 to the Vega, and about $3,500 to the rear bumper of the GMC. The tree never sprout another leaf in the rest of it's short life so Stuart (Bohne, owner of Lester's) simply donated it.
We brought Russ Croley, a new attorney and the driver of the Chevy Vega into the showroom to "warm up" and gather his faculties and that's where he & I met (we've been friends for about 35 years now). He had been living in Central City for about a week and after that I'm surprised he stayed but he did.
This is one of a very few "funny" stories I can tell about some dedicated volunteer firemen. Most of the stories told about them are very serious and there's no way we could function without them and their dedication. The tornado we had earlier this year proves that. We are grateful for them and appreciate everything they do, but it's nice to be able to sit back and have a laugh every now and then, even if it is at their expense!
No comments:
Post a Comment