There’s a lot that can be said of anyone willing to run toward a burning building while everyone else is running away. As much can be said of someone who will drive and ambulance through busy intersections of a main street when you need help the most. Truth be told, I have always had nothing but admiration for local firefighters and EMTs, so a tag-along with the crew at the Norwich Fire Department for this week’s Punching the Clock was nothing short of an honor for me.
“A lot of people dont’ really realize just how much we do here. You never know when a call is going to come in or what it’s going to be,” explained NFD Chief Tracy Chawgo, referring to the department’s two-fold operation of fire and EMS responsibilities. The department currently staffs 15 full-time employees and four part-time, with additional help from countless volunteers. “We’re too busy to be all volunteer, but too small to be all paid. We couldn’t do what we do without those volunteers,” he said.
My shift started shortly after 10 a.m., almost four hours after the regular crew reported for duty. Chief Chawgo turned me over to Steve Cady, one of the EMTs on staff that day. In the world of EMTs, Cady has more than enough experience to boast, serving with the City of Norwich as well as the Chenango County 911 dispatch center. Cady had all of two minutes to give me the run-down of the day-to-day operations at the fire station when an emergency call came in, reaffirming Chawgo’s statement that you never know what to expect.
I jumped in the back of one of the three ambulances stationed at NFD, along with volunteer Zach Maricle. “About 80 percent of all our calls are EMT related,” Cady called from the front seat as the ambulance turned out of the fire station onto East Main Street. “And it’s not unusual to have another call while we’re out.”
Last year, the Norwich Fire Department responded to more than 4,000 calls in its district, most of which were EMS related. The ambulance district covers the City of Norwich as well as the Town of Norwich, North Norwich, Plymouth, Preston and Pharsalia.
The ambulance stopped at a house in downtown Norwich, where a senior citizen, who lived alone, had fallen during the night and remained on the floor, helpless for nearly six hours until responders came. The call came from a friend who was going to drive the two to a hair appointment that morning.
EMT’s comforted her and transported her from her home to the ambulance parked on the curbside in a routine that has become second nature to them. I climbed in a second ambulance that had also reported to the scene as a precautionary measure, and the other ambulance took the patient to UHS Chenango Memorial.
On the way back to the station, another call was dispatched before the ambulance reached the end of the street. From the back of the ambulance, I could make out only blips of the dispatcher’s jargon: “Male patient ... CIT ... difficulty breathing ... unresponsive.”
“Unresponsive means he may not be breathing,” Maricle told me while he gathered medical gear and the ambulance sped down the center lane of South Broad Street, siren blowing and lights flashing.
Moments later, I was following the EMT crew to the front doors of Valley Ridge Center for Intensive Treatment (CIT), a state-run, secure treatment facility in the Town of Norwich. The crew, armed with medical equipment and a gurney, bypassed the metal detectors at main entrance and was led by a CIT employee to the patient’s room, where the patient himself was being unruly at best – although CIT staff did their best to calm him. After a few moments, the patient was (slightly) more composed, finally agreeing to lay on the gurney, then was wheeled outside to the ambulance.
This time, I sat in the front seat, separated from the patient and EMTs by a partition directly behind the drivers and passenger’s seat of the ambulance. Firefighter and EMT Timothy Llewelyn sat behind the wheel. “You should have been with us earlier,” he said, making reference to two days prior. “We had at least ten calls. It was just one after another all day.”
The ambulance made its way back into city limits, up Broad Street to Chenango Memorial Hospital to hand the patient over to more substantial medical care.
I helped Maricle clean the debris from the back of the ambulance that was left behind by the EMTs who had hooked the patient up to a heart monitor, while Cady made headway on the mountains of paperwork that comes with each medical transport, which I was told takes, on average, 45 minutes to file.
“That’s the best part of the job; you don’t know what’s coming next,” assured Greg Franklin, another EMT and firefighter on duty.
The ambulance finally made its way back to the station on East Main, almost two hours after it rolled out the doorway. “It tends to slow down between noon and two o’clock,” Franklin told me. “And it almost always gets busy again after two for some reason.”
With no other calls coming in – at least not for the time being – Franklin gave me the nickel tour of the station, and a crash course in firefighter safety 101.
“Most firefighters can get all their gear on in under two minutes,” Franklin said, pulling fire gear from the racks on the side wall of the truck bay. “The really good ones can do it a minute.” He laid the gear in a pile in front of me – pants, boots, coat, mask, helmet, gloves and oxygen tank – so I could try my hand at suiting up. Needless to say, it took more (much more) than two minutes; and it was only with a lot of somewhat embarrassing help that I was able to get the pants on, strapped, buttoned, zipped, hooked and whatever else had to be done ... for safety’s sake. “It’s all a matter of routine,” Franklin assured me. “Once you know where the straps are, it gets a lot easier.”
In the end, I can say I was a little relieved a fire call didn’t come in. While I have nothing but respect for the men and women who risk their lives as part of their day job, I’m fairly confident that a firefighter I am not.
As Franklin told me, “You either like it or you don’t. It’s not a job for everybody.”