Come on baby, light my fire!

Yesterday at work we had the fortunate opportunity to go out to the Suncor oil refinery and do some live fuel fire training. The Suncor Fire Department and Emergency Response Team members were all incredible; helpful, friendly, supportive, and so knowledgeable. They even offered to take pictures for us so we could just get out there and have fun. We had a complete blast!

The day began with some classroom time and then after lunch we did several hours of live fire evolutions. I was absolutely freezing all morning in the classroom so was really happy to get all my bunker gear on and out into some good heat. We started the afternoon practicing appropriate hose patterns, then single valve fuel fires, moved up to four and five valve fires, and ended the day applying foam to tanker fires. We all rotated through the positions; leader, nozzle-man, mule, and kinker (The fire service definitely does have some of the most interesting names and terminology!), and learned how important it is for all of the players/positions to communicate well. It was great practice for dealing with fuel tank vapor and fires and super fun to get to train with such great firefighters as well as a lot of live fire. The weather was perfect, the burn evolutions were great, no one got hurt, and we all learned so much.

Today we heard that our Suncor FD instructors were very impressed with how well we worked together, caught on, and learned quickly. They were pleasantly surprised that as a group of people with varying degrees of experience and limited time working together we did really great and were able to do a lot of more advanced evolutions. I felt honored to have gotten a personal "well-done" from one of our lead instructors, Manny. Thanks!

Everyone getting all geared up and ready to begin!


How much fun is it to have rainbow colored hoses? Love it!!!

Advancing in to keep the fire to the rear and away from the leader.


I'm at the nozzle on the far left team with the yellow chevron's on my helmet. We're controlling the fire from the top so it doesn't fall down onto the leader while shutting off valves.


This was the fire evolution where I was the leader with four valves to shut off. Bring it on, baby!

Carefully and deliberately moving in to shut off the first of four fuel valves. I'm in between hose teams one and two to the left of the photo with my arms outstretched shouting "Step!" "Step!" "Step!" "Step!"

Moving in with hose teams two and three to shut off the last two fuel valves. Imagine my surprise when a huge ball of flame flashed up into my face from underneath the hose streams from the tower straight in front of me while shutting off the lower valve!


The fire coming up around our feet was pretty crazy, I suppose that's a risk when you're wading in diesel/gasoline floating on water. It also gets really slippery and hard to stay upright.

What a sight... Sweet, sweet fire!!!!!!!

What am I doing?? I have no idea...

Power cone hoseline protection so the leader can shut off the valves.


Fuel tanker fire. Gorgeous, isn't it?!

The entire Louisville crew at the end of the day pleased with how well everything went. Such fun!!

I really love this firefighting stuff and feel so fortunate that all of my hard work over the last five years has paid off and I get to do this for a living each and every day. It truly is one of the best and most rewarding careers out there!

No thanks

So, each time I have a clinical at the hospital I appreciate all that nurses and techs deal with and appreciate even more so that I am not, nor ever will be, one. Today I got to help with several Foley catheter placements (eek), place an NG tube with gastric lavage (gag), coach...see threaten...a lady to drink her activated charcoal twice after an OD on kitchen de-greaser, enjoy her vomiting it...again twice, and relieving herself in the bed...can you guess?..yep, twice. Needless to say, she and I became buddies as only those who have cleaned up another's feces can be (just wrong). She even told me she loves me... ha ha!

I am grateful for the millions of thankless tasks and services that nurses provide under so much workload, but there is no question in my mind that it's not for me...ever.

Fire, pharm, fun, and floor cleaners....

My life these days is all about fire training, work projects, physical training, paramedic school, pharmacology, and study time. Perhaps not super interesting to some, but really, I'm loving it. I will admit that we are all looking forward to the completion of our Fire Academy the end of next week and will be celebrating at our graduation ceremony on April 4th. I'm also amazed that this first phase of paramedic school is done in less than a month. My how time flies when you're living your dreams!

Going on air before entering the structure. We've got some fire to find & fight!

Squad 2 at the burn training center.

In the new ambo on the way to a visit/tour of Children's Hospital.


Studying during lunch at paramedic school.


Precisely why paramedics shouldn't do CPR.


Lunch break while training at an acquired structure.


Me with James, one of the paramedics I'll be working shift with.


My elbows rubbed right off doing "floor-cleaners" across the bay floor during PT one morning. Today several of us are still dealing with red, raw and painful elbows a week later!
(not loving that genetic double chin however...)

New update coming soon... It's hard to have anything interesting to post about some weeks!

Fire academy

For our first eight weeks we are going through an accelerated fire academy as there are a couple of guys who have no fire experience and for all nine of us to get used to working together. We have drill ground fire days three days a week and operations tasks two days a week. I'm loving the review of it all and the good physical work that comes along with it. Below are some random photos from a couple of fire academy days. Hopefully we'll be doing live burns the next few Fridays so I'll try to get some good photos then!

Practice hitting the hydrant...

...hose evolutions...


...reloading the preconnect attack lines, over and over and over...


...me and my paramedic squad partner Sean in front of one of our fantastic new ambulances...


...laying out hoselines up the stairs...

...a less than attractive me towards the end of the day!

We are all learning a lot and having so much fun together. I feel so fortunate to be working so closely with such a great group of people. And the best part is, it's only going to get better as time goes on!!!

Happy To Me Day!!!

All those who know me know how I love any reason to celebrate, even if it's me getting older. This birthday brings me even closer to the big 4-0 and I really am okay with that. I didn't really have much planned until some good friends stepped into play. In the normal Trishie fashion I was able to spread my birthday out for a good week. Had dinner with my ambulance partner Nick one night, my friend John another night, and a super secret Sunday celebration with Melanie and the girls. In addition there were lots and lots of phone calls, texts, birthday singing, emails and birthday cards from so many wonderful family and friends. I love you all!!!

Melanie and I had plans to play raquetball Sunday morning and then have brunch. I have never played raquetball as I'm not super coordinated, but it was a blast and a lot of laughing. For some unknown reason my body feels the urge to kick my foot up behind me when I hit the ball. Its kinda gay, but was really funny. From there I was blindfolded in the car and driven to the secret destination for brunch. Melanie thinking she was super tricky drove in circles through 4-way intersections, backed up down roads, did circles around the same neighborhoods and did her very best to make me sick. I had told her before that if she blindfolded me I'd puke and she replied "I'll roll the window down." What a true friend... Finally we ended up at our destination and it was even fancier than I could have imagined--IHop!!! I was paraded through the entrance by Portia and Mikaela and wasn't un-blindfolded until we had our name in to wait for our table. It was a hoot! Apparently it's a popular day of birth as the Ihop had ten birthdays that morning! We had a delicious breakfast, opened presents, and shared a little ice cream sundae.

After my fun morning I spent the rest of the day being a lazy, study-free fool. I cleaned my house, had a hot bath and read a fun book, had flowers delivered to my door, and made a delicious birthday dinner of lamb and pasta. It was wonderful!

Stupid cold...

Right now I have a miserable head cold, cough, and for the second time in six months have laryngitis. Yeah, I've already heard all the "funny" comments about me being silent. Anyhow, once I feel a little better and have a bit more energy I'll post a few pictures from my birthday celebration. Thanks for all the birthday wishes! Right now though, I am beat after full physical days at academy and/or school with this stupid cold thingamajigie... Off to bed after I drink my honey lemon ginger cough tea, chug a little Robitussin, and suck on a Chloraseptic while I (hopefully) fall asleep. Sweet dreams little Charlie...

They pay me to do this???

Today was day four of my new career and it was great. So many times throughout the day I thought to myself, "I can't believe they are paying me to do this!" It's still a bit strange feeling and at times I forget that I'm no longer a volunteer and now an employee. It is a bit of a shift and kind of sad to accept not being able to respond to calls outside of my work hours. The training is fantastic, the drill ground work is a wonderful refresher, and how much do I love being able to work out doing PT almost every day?! Today after classroom we spent the entire afternoon doing shake-n-bakes, SCBA drills and emergency air operations, and confined space blackout drills. It was good physical work, pretty sweaty, and a blast!

The new group of employees is great. There are six new fire/paramedics and us three fire/EMT/Engineers. To this point everyone seems really great, excited to be here, pretty much everyone comes with great experience in some way or another, and we are all working really well together. I am excited about the new friendships and working relationships with these new members of my FD family. One of the medics was one of my academy instructors in my probie academy in 2003 which is lots of fun! So many great resources to learn from. I can even honestly say that I don't even mind the new red (probie) shirts that we were issued on Monday. It's a strange feeling to be a probie again but I'm here for the long haul and am okay being one of the least senior people on the department for now (even though I've been there over four years). :-)

Having 6 8-hr hospital clinicals thrown in at school yesterday was a bit unexpected and will make the next few months schedule even busier. I look at it though as an opportunity to learn and absorb more detailed information in the OR, ED, and RT units which could be really interesting. It's going to be a tough and very busy few months with fire academy M-F and paramedic school on C-shift days but it'll all work out.

Thanks to all of you who are pulling for our little cage-fighter Charlie. He's hanging in there and keeping all those who love him on our toes. Hang in there, little man!!!

Back to the books now to try and get caught up a bit on my school reading...yikes!!!

Back on the blogger again!

It seems that somehow it's been nearly two years since I last blogged about my experiences and adventures in Antarctica. How incredible that time was and where has the time gone in between!?! Well, in the last two years my life has not been nearly so interesting but very fulfilling and busy nonetheless...

Today I worked my last full-time shift at Pridemark Paramedics where I've worked on the ambulance in a fairly busy 911 EMS system for the last nearly three years. It was a bittersweet day for several reasons. I have learned so much from several really amazing paramedic partners about medicine, pre-hospital care and how to provide it with skill and flair, dealing with and appreciating people from all walks of life (we all have something to share and teach), and just how many people either don't wear underwear or really could be less interested if they have pants on when they go to the hospital. I tell you, you really can't make some of this stuff up. I'm going to miss spending my days at hospitals, cursing oblivious drivers, staring at parking lots, singing with elderly demented patients, going on walk-about in the grocery stores to prevent DVT's from sitting too long, experiencing the sheer joy of finding both a cold Diet Coke in a can AND an applesauce container in the fridge of an EMS lounge (honestly, I couldn't have been more excited!), playing on the playground and swings of elementary schools, and most of all sitting next to and getting to know some fantastic people in the ambulance for 12 hours straight each day. Thanks Nick, Christi, Josh, and Matt for helping me to get where I am today. You're all amazing! :-)

I am excited now for the new challenges and huge changes that are taking place in my life. I started Paramedic school on January 17th and start a new career as a full-time paid Firefighter/EMT/Engineer at Louisville Fire Department where I've been a volunteer since July of 2003. It's a busy time for me, scary in many ways, but I am so excited about what is to come and feel so fortunate to have these opportunities.

Although I do think that I may have been the family's founding blogger, in order to be the winner of the poll on mom's blog (not that I'm the least bit competitive or anything), I now have become a born again blogger! Ha...

Finally, and most importantly, please keep my sweet little 8 month old nephew, Charlie Cooper, in your thoughts as he is fighting like a champ for his life in the PICU at Primary Children's Medical Center with bacterial meningitis. Click here to get to his blog. Charlie the world is pulling for you!