Monday, February 19, 2007

Losing Face at a House Fire

So last night, while driving Rescue Engine 9 - we were dispatched to a house fire in Brambleton. Turned out to just be an oven mitt fire (the lady of the house caught her oven mitt on fire, put it in a drawer, denied anything happened and waited for her husband to see the smoke and call 911 - I think Darwin is pissed at us now).

I digress.

While showing a redhat how to pull the supply line off the engine while another one was taking it forward to a hydrant (engine and truck weren't there - needed to keep room for them), I pulled a little hard, wasn't paying enough attention to what I was doing and ended up with a Storz coupling to the face.

I did manage to finish my driver / pump operator duties on the scene despite valiant attempts by our EMS crew to treat me. They just taped a few 4x4 gauze pads to my face while I made sure we had good water supply and such.

Final tally for the evening:

1 swollen and bruised face
3-4 1 to 2 inch lacerations
1 vertical laceration to my upper lip with 2 stitches (it split)
1/3 of my right top front tooth missing (going to the dentist in a few mins to fix that)

the worst injury was to my pride.

but the good news is i might have scar a la Joaquin Phoenix in Ladder 49



Of course, my girlfriend is still much hotter.


UPDATE: 5:05PM
I just returned from the Dentist. Seems several of my teeth have fractures below the gumline. fortunately they should heal. if not - root canal time.

In fact, I just had a root canal. Funfunfun. Good news is, i might need up to 9 more.


This is me lying down in the hospital.





and this is me at the oven mitt fire just before i went to the hospital. notice the dazed look (yes, a different than normal dazed look).