http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/29/us/politics/29party.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

I hereby offer Rescuing Providence as the forum for the “White House Party Crashers” to tell their story. I’m offering no monetary compensation for this privilege. In lieu of money, something far more valuable is available.

Chrysalis will read your story. She’s been reading mine for years and always has something thoughtful and encouraging to share. Bernice will read your story and offer her insight into your warped minds that you may or may not listen to. Walt from New Hampshire, Jen from Vermont, Susie and Mark from Great Britain will learn about you.

Justin, the Happy Medic, Jean the poet, Gia the dispatcher and Ambulance Mommy, a proud parent will read about you.

Dozens more will stop by Rescuing Providence, not for a cheap thrill or strange grasp at fame, but to be part of something better than all that. People come here not just to read my stories, but to read what others think about them, to link to other sites and learn about other people. That’s what I love about this blog, and all the others I visit. We’re all proud of what we do, and love to tell our stories, but understand that the people who honor us with their time deserve more than some cheap publicity stunt by disingenuous people, put up for sale to the highest bidder.

So there is my offer, Party Crashers. You won’t get rich, or achieve the fame you apparently are obsessed with. You will get to tell your story to people with a conscience, people who care, and people who matter.

http://www.susiehemingway.com/books/

Susie Hemingway”s book, A Power Within, Poems of Love came in the mail today. I plan on giving it to the Mrs. for Christmas. I can’t think of a better gift. I hid it in the basement after giving it a quick read. The quick read lasted over an hour, even though I had already read most of the poems inside they are so good you can read them countless times.

I never was much of a poetry fan but these are different, I often wonder why. Maybe it’s because I found Susie while doing a random search of all of the blogs from all over the world and for some reason landed on her site. The words simply struck home. Maybe it’s because we both are blessed with beautiful, courageous and inspiring spouses who happen to be ailing. Maybe it’s because her words seem to find me at all the right times, when I need them the most. Whatever the reason,  follow the link to Susie’s site, I think you will also be hooked by the passion, honesty and love her words convey.

Though written for her husband, Hamada, who is battling Multiple Myeloma, they manage to touch my soul every time I read one.

Thank you Susie, this is a great gift, probably won’t make it to the 25th!

What exactly is Black Friday? You just know we’re being taken advantage of when corporate America jumps on the urban myth bandwagon and starts to market a social phenomenon like Black Friday. I liked it better when we all knew that the day after Thanksgiving was shoppers hell, no big ad campaign had to tell us but bargains were to be found if you looked. I actually passed a home improvement place today that was advertising “Black Friday Window Sale.”

Sometimes I think we’re on this planet to serve as revenue producers for other people. Then I remember yesterday, when things were quiet and I sat in my backyard smoking a cigar with my daughter’s boyfriend and his dad talking about whatever came to mind. The girls were inside drinking wine and talking about whatever it is they talk about when they are left without their other halfs. Simple, unplanned things like that make it all worthwhile. Nobody told us it was “Smoking Thanksgiving Eve” or anything, just three guys enjoying each other’s company after a long enjoyable holiday spent with our families.

I had a great day yesterday, and Black Friday is just another day, as far as I’m concerned.

I’m no Washington, but I do know at thing or two about giving thanks.

Yesterday at four in the afternoon I decided to go food shopping for the last minute things necessary for a successful feast. I needed cranberry sauce, whole and jellied, turnip, (I’m the only one who eats the stuff at my house) some gravy, milk and some cream cheese. I never thought twice about the chances of all these things being available at my fingertips hours before a major holiday.

The shelves were stocked with food, fruit, fresh vegetables, thousands of cheeses, aisle after aisle of things, perishable and not.

I walked past the meat counter as the meat guy wheeled out a pallet full of turkeys. Fresh ones, frozen ones, big ones, little ones, they even had a duck and some geese.

If you took a person from the not so distant past and put him in my place yesterday he might have thought he was in heaven. I thought of that after complaining to the grocery manager because there was no whole cranberries.

Thank you everybody who participated in our democracy, past and future. It truly is amazing how we make this society work. It’s nearly miraculous when you stop and think about it.

I found this at www.anchorrising.com and figured I’d share it here.

General Thanksgiving
By the PRESIDENT of the United States Of America
A PROCLAMATION

WHEREAS it is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey His will, to be grateful for His benefits, and humbly to implore His protection and favour; and Whereas both Houfes of Congress have, by their joint committee, requefted me “to recommend to the people of the United States a DAY OF PUBLICK THANSGIVING and PRAYER, to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many and signal favors of Almighty God, especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to eftablifh a form of government for their safety and happiness:”

NOW THEREFORE, I do recommend and affign THURSDAY, the TWENTY-SIXTH DAY of NOVEMBER next, to be devoted by the people of thefe States to the fervice of that great and glorious Being who is the beneficent author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be; that we may then all unite in rendering unto Him our fincere and humble thanksfor His kind care and protection of the people of this country previous to their becoming a nation; for the fignal and manifold mercies and the favorable interpofitions of His providence in the courfe and conclufion of the late war; for the great degree of tranquility, union, and plenty which we have fince enjoyed;– for the peaceable and rational manner in which we have been enable to eftablish Conftitutions of government for our fafety and happinefs, and particularly the national one now lately instituted;– for the civil and religious liberty with which we are bleffed, and the means we have of acquiring and diffufing useful knowledge;– and, in general, for all the great and various favours which He has been pleafed to confer upon us.

And also, that we may then unite in moft humbly offering our prayers and fupplications to the great Lord and Ruler of Nations and befeech Him to pardon our national and other tranfgreffions;– to enable us all, whether in publick or private ftations, to perform our feveral and relative duties properly and punctually; to render our National Government a bleffing to all the people by conftantly being a Government of wife, juft, and conftitutional laws, difcreetly and faithfully executed and obeyed; to protect and guide all fovereigns and nations (especially fuch as have shewn kindnefs unto us); and to blefs them with good governments, peace, and concord; to promote the knowledge and practice of true religion and virtue, and the increafe of fcience among them and us; and, generally to grant unto all mankind fuch a degree of temporal profperity as he alone knows to be beft.

GIVEN under my hand, at the city of New-York, the third day of October, in the year of our Lord, one thousand feven hundred and eighty-nine.

(signed) G. Washington

My friend, Ryan is twenty-three. He’s been a Providence Firefighter for about a year. When Adam left the rescue for Engine 7 on North Main Street, Ryan took over. We had only worked together for a month or so when I injured my back, but in that short span of time I learned we have a lot in common; love for the job, compassion for our patients and the desire to do the best job we can.

Two days ago, a man ripped off his seat-belt and slammed his car into a bridge abutment as his girlfriend sat in the passenger seat. We will probably never know what caused him to do it, only that he did. When the crash didn’t kill him he ran from the car, onto as overpass and jumped into the northbound lanes of Route 95 North. Four cars hit him.

Ryan and Dave were first on scene. It should have been me and Ryan, and for Ryan’s sake I wish it was. Nothing against Dave, he is more than capable, but at incidents like these it helps to be with your regular partner. The scene Ryan described to me as he drove home from work, alone in his truck for the first time since the incident was horrific, to put it mildly.

I’m sure Ryan will be fine, he’s a tough kid.These things do have a way of hanging around the subconscious though. The whole thing made me think of a chapter I wrote in the sequel to Rescuing Providence.

excerpt from Another Day in Providence, all rights reserved.

Early Winter, 1992.

“Attention Engines 12, 2, 7, ladder s 3 and 7, Special Hazards, Rescue 3 and Car 23, respond to the corners of Dorothy and Charles for a cave-in with a man trapped.”

This is what I lived for, what I trained for, what I would do for the next twenty years at least; rescue people. I hit the pole while the echo from the loudspeaker still filled the station, stepped into my bunker gear and climbed into Ladder 7’s tiller cab.  Steve Rocchio was already in the drivers seat, Lieutenant Healy was “getting dressed,” almost ready to climb into the officer’s seat.  I squeezed into the tiny seat in the tiller man’s compartment, and immediately pressed the button that enabled the truck to start,  I heard the familiar cranking from the doghouse, then the whine of the powerful Mack engine as the truck came to life.

I pressed a different button, one next to the start switch.  This was my only communication with the driver of the ladder truck.  One ring meant STOP immediately, two rings meant go forward, three was for backing up.  The tiller man rang first, letting the driver know all systems were go.  The driver would respond with a like number of rings and the truck would roll.  Two rings and Steve knew I was ready, he responded with two rings and we sped out the door. I slammed the bubble windows on the tiller cab shut which did little to keep the freezing December wind and chill from the inside.  It didn’t matter how cold or hot it was in the tiller cab, there was nowhere I would have rather have been.  My turnout gear and the thrill of being a Providence Firefighter sitting on top of the world in a tiller cab were enough to keep me comfortable.

It takes a while to get the hang of the tiller, but once you do you never forget. It really isn’t that hard, as one firefighter infamously stated, “any asshole can tiller,” right before he crashed the truck into the fire station.

The setting sun on the horizon offered little warmth on this cold winters day; only the light would be missed, fleeting by the minute. The red and orange hues mixed with the grey winter sky as darkness seeped relentlessly through the brilliant colors, eventually replacing the beautiful canvas with black.

A mile away two men frantically dug at the earth where their friend was buried alive.  They were finishing up for the day when tragedy struck. They were excavators, digging a foundation in a hilly embankment in the city’s North End. The backhoe that they had been using sat idling at the crest of the enormous hole they had spent the day creating, never once considering it would become a tomb.  The two men stood on the spot they last saw the victim before one of the walls collapsed, burying him under twelve feet of earth. They were afraid to use the machine that made the hole in fear of crushing or cutting their friend in half.

Once our crew had assembled we took over the rescue operation, sending firefighters into the hole in three man teams to dig.  We set up emergency lighting giving the scene the look of a movie set.  This, however was no scripted story, this was real life, and sudden death.  From inside the hole the silhouettes of firefighters holding tools resembling ancient weapons gave comfort to those digging.  I trusted those shadows on the rise with my life should the earth shift and I become entombed.

We all had a turn. The ground was recently turned by the backhoe and easy to move. It was also potentially deadly.  I looked at a twenty-foot wall of instability, waiting to crush us while I took my turn with the shovel, ever mindful of how fast a cave-in happens.

As the minutes pressed on the digging became more frantic.  Eventually Chief Ronny Moura had the backhoe operator carefully remove bigger mounds of earth, knowing every second was vital to the buried man’s chance for survival.  After taking a few scoops from the hole with the backhoe, our guys returned.  My friend, Nate Sweet was in the hole when we found the body.  Just an arm, but we were revitalized.  The digging picked up steam as we tried desperately to free the man.  Minutes flew by, oxygen was passed into the hole, eventually a mask put on the man’s face.  We all watched as the three in the hole finally freed the victim, limp, lifeless from his grave.  We placed him in a stokes basked and raised his body, passing him through us to safe ground.  He never had a chance.

There was no transport, the medical examiner took over.  We silently picked up our gear and went back to the station.

It was my first meeting with death.  There would be many, many more.  I’ve never gotten used to it.

It’s different being with your friends and co-workers after living through a traumatic event.  Strength in numbers comes to mind.  Back at the station we talked about the incident while washing down the dirt covered shovels and portable lighting, feeling sympathy for the man who went to work that morning and never would come home, wondered if he left a wife or children.  It makes it easier to share your thoughts with people who have lived through the same experience.

That was our last call of the day.  We went our separate ways shortly after returning to the station.  I had a half hour ride home. The incident was still with me all of the way. The emptiness of my car was suffocating; I couldn’t wait to get home.  Eventually I made it, looked at Cheryl, kissed her, hugged her and broke down in tears.  I don’t think I cried for the man who died in the hole, I’m not even sure why I cried.  All I know was it was good to be home and there was nowhere I would rather be.

http://www.projo.com/news/content/PERNSLEY_FOLO_11-18-09_R9GG86K_v28.398ac50.html

Funny thing about back problems; everybody seems to have one. Whenever I tell somebody I’m recuperating from a back injury I get the usual, “don’t I know it, my back KILLS!”

In all fairness, I’m guilty of the same, whenever somebody tells me about their aching back I’m the first to chime in with “you don’t know the half of it!”

So, anyway, while my back continues to improve I’ve been keeping busy, I actually have no idea how I ever found time to work. I do have to do things more slowly and actually think before I move, or a big surprise is in store. I still can’t get used to being on half speed.

If nothing else I’ve learned some humility. As some of you may know, my wife is battling Multiple Sclerosis. Walking underwater with a limp is a good way to describe how she gets around, it really is quite difficult. Simple things I take for granted, such as rolling over in bed are a monumental task for her. While I’ve never taken her condition lightly, I never really understood the frustration of wanting to do something but being unable. That is the worst, waiting for somebody to help. I think I know a tenth of what she feels now.

So, that is my silver lining for today. Crummy silver lining, I know, but it’s all I’ve got.

I’d like to thank everybody who still stops by here, I really appreciate it. I know not much is happening, and there is a ton of other things to occupy your time, so THANK YOU! I think I’m an egomaniac, I actually get quite sad if nobody is paying attention to me.

I found myself in the hot seat at Brown University last night, answering questions from students considering a career in medicine. One of the students, Brita Larson invited me to talk with the class in an informal setting about my opinions and experience with emergency medical services.

Considering I am my favorite subject I couldn’t refuse. The students were great and seemed genuinely interested in what I had to say. I’ve been writing my thoughts and opinions for so long it was a welcome change to talk with people and be able to immediately see their reactions to what I had to say. Writing is much safer, I learned. It is easy to write something, let it sit for a while, then reread it and change things that don’t sound quite right. Talking is on the record, then and there, no looking back. I found myself questioning some of my own opinions about poverty, lifestyle and the need for reform in our “industry” after the class. I’ve never been one to hold back my ideas, it’s just that nobody really listens to idle conversation. These kids did listen, and looked to me as an authority and expert in my field, and it occurred to me halfway through that I actually am.

Thank you, Brita and the rest of the class for welcoming me into your world for a little while. I hope you enjoyed the hour as much as I did.

The “holiday” began as a commemoration marking the end of World War I. When the War to End all Wars failed to do so, Armistice Day turned into Veterans Day. There will forever be people whose path leads them to be protectors. As I write this, many are in harms way, hot, tired and longing for home. Some may be wounded or losing their life by the time you read this. Too many already have.

Thank you, Veterans, for your service.

Make sure you thank a Veteran today.

Two of the coolest people in the blogosphere, The Happy Medic and Medic 999 have been talking for months about a cross continent meeting of EMS providers. Both of these guys take this job seriously, but also have a lot of fun along the way. They are working hard on this project of theirs. It is something everybody involved in pre-hospital care will benefit from.

They have graciously gone to great lengths to make sure we can all follow along. Facebook, Twitter and all those media forms I know nothing about are up and rolling.

Don’t waste time here, follow the links, that is where the action is!

But you better come back, I’m healing and will be in working condition before you know it!

http://happymedic.com/2009/11/08/the-british-are-coming-the-british-are-coming/

http://999medic.com/

What is up with all this handshake huggy stuff all the young guys are doing now? Every time I go to shake somebodies hand who happens to be under thirty they drag me in and give me a hug. Don’t like it. Nothing personal, but I like my space.  My brother, the Iraq war veteran, Correctional Officer all around tough guy and I have been through fistfights, rockfights, a knife fight or two and a couple of gunfights-never hugged. Children have been born, homes bought, parents died, kids graduated, milestone after milestone and we never hugged. The last time we touched anything other than our right hands was our last episode of Kung Fu, Ali-Frasier wrestling when we were twelve and ten. I love the man, and am not afraid to say it, I’d take a bullet for him, but NO HUGS!

From here on, if anybody attempts to hug me during a handshake, I will be forced to assume I’m being brought close for something deadly, a shiv attack or worse, and respond with deadly force of my own. The ancient Babble-on-ians started the handshake as a means of holding their enemies hand to avert an attack. That’s when men were men, no hugging allowed. I like it that way, nice and simple.

If you feel an overwhelming desire to hug while greeting substitutes are acceptable. Wives, girlfriends and hot mothers will do.

The Health Care Debate. What the hell is the debate? Half the people are fortunate enough to be able to afford health insurance or the copay’s, the other half are not. Some people don’t need health insurance at all; they are wealthy enough to provide whatever medical interventions or procedures necessary to sustain health. The half that don’t qualify for decent coverage have three options,

1. Go without and risk everything

2. Go broke but provide insurance for you  and your family.

3. Give up, stop trying to be productive and stay under the government limit for income that allows you to recieve taxpayer funded health insurance.

Option three has become more attractive. Getting by rather than excelling is more appealing to those who once had inspiration and initiative, and a drive to succeed at nearly any cost. Risk takers made this country work, and have kept this country great. Now, the risk is too great. Medical knowledge has advanced to the point where cancer is no longer a death sentance, hips, knees and other joints are routinely replaced as we age, MRI’s detect potential life ending or altering situations before they are allowed to begin their destructive tear through our bodies. Life saving treatment that works is available. If you can pay.

Sacrificing dreams and hard work to ensure access to a health care system that probably will at the very least improve your life, and may just save it is a trade-off too tempting to pass up for many.

So put your aspirations on hold, don’t open that business or invent that thing, forget about higher education, the chance of failure is not only great, but with that failure now comes the added fear of being left out if illness or tragedy strikes.

Wait! Washington has promised to “fix” the debacle that is the Healthcare Industry here in the US.

Congress is trying to pass a complicated healthcare reform package that will ensure quality healthcare for all Americans. The Democrats may not have enough votes to make it happen. Nancy Pelosi is busy counting supporters of the bill and hoping for some Republican votes to get the thing through.

Huh?

Didn’t we elect these people to put our best interests ahead of party line? Don’t our tax dollars support them and their staff? Are they working for us, or working for the party line? What difference is there between a Democrat and a Republican when they are lying on an operating table? Or in a trauma room? Or at the oncologist? Or delivering a baby?

I’d like to put the entire Congress of the United States in the waiting room at Rhode Island Hospital on a Saturday Night and not let them leave until they figured this thing out.  Yeah, it’s complicated, but so is brain surgury, but we have figured that out. At least if you can pay.