the response

Two months and a day since our last call, and a tractor trailer drove off the road last night deep into the rhubarb. Actually, it was very early this morning. And we got called.

If you've ever experienced ejection from bed at 3:30 AM by a rattling, beeping, electronic voice box croaking out orders to wake up this instant, sleep walk to your truck, and respond to a crash, or a fire, or a cat in a tree (we don't do cats), then you understand part of the essence of volunteer firefighting. Our wives understand. They wake up to the same tones, lie awake for a half an hour after, and finally fall asleep just in time to wake up again when we come home. Yes, they understand.

Some wives are volunteer firefighters, and if their husbands are volunteer firefighters too they have a feud everytime the pager goes off to see who gets to go and who has to stay home with the kids.

"It's my turn to go out and get soaking wet and filthy and exhausted and frozen and sleep deprived!"

"No, it's my turn! I stayed home with the brats last time!"

Fortunately, Erinn is no longer a firefighter and my kids aren't brats. But I digress.

Back to the hero of our story, the rhubarbed trucker. He went in so deep that our talented (albeit unemployed) bushwacker firefighters had to bushwack a path to the cab so we could help the paramedics get the driver and passenger onto boards and into the ambulance. Here are a couple of photos, some taken right after the rescue and some a few hours later after the sun rose.












Not the worst mess we've dealt with, but time consuming nonetheless. The two occupants were in pretty rough shape (you would be too after a ride like that) but as far as I know they are both expected to make a full recovery.

For all of you that are thinking, "that's what he gets for talking about having the whole month of October without a call I say, 'back off!' Back off I say, because it's been a full 24 days since I said that, which is much to long for there to be any bad luck connected with the comment. If you haven't read my column about firefighter superstitions, click here.

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving for all of my friends on the US side of the border. We Canadians had ours in October. You've probably seen the clip of Obama pardoning his Thanksgiving turkey, but if not, click here. Anyway, happy Thanksgiving all ye thankful Yankees!