Nuf said.
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Archives: April 2008
That New Helicopter Smell
“You know the new aircraft is here right?”
Marky blurted it out during our change of shift brief this morning. His hair was standing on end, and he hadn’t had time to wipe the sleep from his eyes. He was TRYING to tell me about his three flights from last night, and ended up telling me about the helicopter mid-sentence. I didn’t let him finish.
I made a bee line for the hanger, Marky trailing behind in his socks trying to fit words together enough in his sleep deprived state to make sense. The new helicopter smell hit me as I was oooing and ahhhing over the gorgeous paint job. The people at Sikorski were just as excited about the design as we were.
Unfortunately, I don’t have permission to post photos of the outside of the aircraft yet, so the suspense will have to build. I will save the paint story for later too. Instead, here are photos and video of us today from the inside on my first flight in the new aircraft.
Yeah, and I broke the helicopter already. Okay, not really. A small Plexiglas door just kinda came out of its track. Shhhh. It went back in!
And I even took my shoes off the first time I got in it.
First published photo of me
in the new aircraft
“MAX WT. 1LB SOFT OBJECTS ONLY”
(yeah, the guy who wrote that wasn’t a perve!
Guess you really won’t need that smoke then, huh?)
Me and Gwen,
one of the Flight Communicators
View from the CockPit
Brad’s awesome custom helmet
(will explain later)
This unedited video is of our take off today. There is a great view of our hanger out the left window and if you listen closely, you can hear me laughing over the engine noise. I am too behind to take the time to edit it, so I apologize for how rough it is!
Well, I have Army this weekend, so the posts will be even more sparse than usual. I am, however, taking the camera and the video camera, with the hope that I will get some more interesting stuff to post.
If you sent me an email and haven’t gotten a response, I apologize! I will get to it when I get home. My CCRN audit (all 50+ pages of it to keep my CCRN) took priority.
The day my life was threatened—Follow Up
Just wanted to make a few more comments about my post, “The Day My Life was Threatened.”
So many of you have left great comments, and for that I thank you.
As the comments began trickling in, I started thinking about being a medic and working pre-hospital. I always joke with my CRNA friends that they can brag to me after they have intubated a patient who is hanging upside down, trapped in a car……..at night. In reality, that statement goes far in illustrating the conditions in which medics work. Part of the reason I like pre-hospital is the unknown, and the mud, and sweat, and the adapting that you don’t have to do in a controlled (no matter how chaotic) in-hospital situation. The violence we dread inside the hospital, however, is compounded when working the street.
Working the street as a medic is, by far, one of the most underpaid, dangerous jobs out there. Cops? Carry weapons. Firefighters? Bring the posse with them. Medics have a partner and usually roll with the aforementioned but sometimes still go in alone.
—————-
“Stage away” flitted over my pager just as we rolled up on the gas station which someone called us to for a “person down.”
Coming from dispatch, this means that no one cares about the patient until the police go in and make sure there are no bad guys who are gonna shoot at us.
Normally the fire guys beat us there. The parking lot had a few cars, no pretty red engines. The cops usually beat us there as well but no joy.
This wasn’t my normal car and I was working with a ROOKIE female EMT who was working the shift as overtime too.
Hmmmm, two white girls, working the Compton car, at night, in the rain, being told to “stage away.”
My partner got real quiet.
Nice. Real nice.
—————-
Fortunately, it is a very stereotypical crack junkie who had binged out and was unconscious. No bad guys were out to get us that night.
Unfortunately, this particular car I was working had been shot at in a drive by a few weeks prior to my shift, and sometime in the few months prior, a female EMT was jumped. The only thing that saved her was her big male partner taking the guy out. This was appropriately the station with 15′ concrete walls like a castle complete with steal gate for security that had to be unlocked, and re-locked to get the ambulance out for a call.
I must admit, that I miss working in Los Angeles County. I really do miss dealing with the unknown that came from working places like Compton and the South Bay, even if it was for a very short time.
So, to all of my pre-hospital peeps—-my hat is off to you. You deserve every bit of recognition I can give you for what you do.
Thank you.
motorcycle licenses and M-16s
Bet that title got your attention. Believe me when I say, it is appropriate.
As of yesterday, I am an officially endorsed motorcycle operator in the state of Michigan. It has been on my list of things to do for the past 2 years. As much as it sucked doing it in 25 degree weather, it was a great class. For those of you in Michigan, the class is actually a substitute for the road test. I am going to give it a shameless plug as the people who taught it were incredible.
Alpha Training Center in Lansing has a great facility, and man did I learn a lot in a hurry. It was worth every penny and then some.
<shameless plug over>
As much as I am going to catch hell from the clan in Savannah, I have definitely settled on the Ducati Monster 696, in White, thank you very much. It will be released in a few weeks and after sitting on the 695 yesterday there is no more question.
Yes dirty boys, I will be getting the
leather pants and boots–geesh!
Enough of motorcycles until I actually buy one. (Link to article where I stole photo from.)
Next on the crzegrl docket? ‘Camp Where the Hell’ for my 4 day field exercise and M16 qualification this weekend.
From motorcycles to firing weapons to flying in helicopters. All I need to do is get my skydiving gear tuned up for the summer!
And take up knitting.
Sunrise Baby Flight
While syncing my multitude of gadgets, I found some photos I had forgotten about. Although there isn’t a great story behind them, other than a long flight up north to pick up a sick baby, I wanted to share them.
Sunrise Flight
Our pilots Ray, and Jeff (aka JJ) loading
the patient/gear with Steve,
my physician for the day inside
Steve attending the bitty patient
A few things about the photos: JJ is on orientation so that is why we are flying with two pilots. Also, I really like this photo of Steve. I have promised to get some photos of him up, so Steve, here you go!
We actually flew so long that day, we had ‘Sikorski Butt.’ The official term for what you develop after multiple long flights occurring in the same shift.
Just as an update, I am hoping to post photos of our new aircraft (Sikorski S-76 C++) tomorrow! It should have arrived this weekend. Yay!
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Blog Accolades
- Saugatuck to Holland by Bicycle for Beer May 13, 2012
- Triathlon: Tri del Sol March 7, 2012
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