This is the year...40...and headed to Africa: 19 May 2011...Happenings at the Fire Department

Hey y'all!

Wow - what a week! This is what I joined the fire service for...to be busy and to "handle" things. This week has been totally off the charts! And all on A-Shift (which happens to be my shift!)

We started off the week with an inflight emergency - which basically means an aircraft is in the process of coming into the airport and there is an emergency of some sort. We were told that one of the engines was out, which may mean a hard/crash landing. Our crash trucks went out on the flight line and we were in the station on standby in the event there was a crash. This turned out to be a check oil light indicator and nothing serious, so the aircraft landed fine.

Next we were called to an actual aircraft that on approach to the runway, crashed outside of the base in town. Since it was a US plane, we responded with the military. Not much I can tell you about it, but it was a crazy 5 hours! I was in the station, again on standby, but we were up most of the time because of the radio traffic going back and forth.

Then we were lucky to get 24 hours off.

We are now back on a 48 hour shift. This shift started with me reporting a suspicious package near the fire station. I was walking over to lunch and noticed this box just randomly placed on top of a saftey pole and wasn't sure what it was. So I reported it to security. It was resolved quickly...thankfully.

In the meantime, it started raining yesterday morning and hasn't let up much since then. We are flooded, wet, and muddy everywhere! So everything we do is a mess right now!

Today is the HOAJTF (Horn of Africa Joint Task Force) Change of Command - this is a Navy Admiral Change of Command. So all the big wigs are here on base for this! We were given specific instructions of how we are to respond to emergencies during this time.

In the meantime, last night, when we were getting all of our stuff ready here in the station, we get another call for a suspicious package just behind the fire department. I was at the gym when the call came over the radio...so I ran back to the station. Well - this time, it really was suspicious. Both bomb dogs sat on the backpack (meaning they could smell something in there....) and therefore in about a 2+ hour ordeal, they finally blew up the bag! It was a little scary - to say the least. Capt. Banaji (base commander) and all the others (Admirals, Generals, etc. were on scene to work through this.)

After all that was over...then we had to deal with the flooding in and around the station. We had so much flooding that our septic backed up into the station - so we are still trying to air that out! GROSS! And while working this, we get a medical call - twisted ankle on the running trail! OKAY - who is running on the running trail in this rain - meaning, the trail is nothing but MUD! Anyway, we respond to the call and can't find the patient. Turns out someone in a gator came by and decided to just take the patient to the clinic themselves...but no one bothered to call 911 back to let us know. We searched for quite a bit and ended up with the ambulance covered in mud! We ended up having to clean the ambulance in the pouring rain...

Wow - just a long week. But still really loving it here! Can't wait for the rain to go away! So far I haven't seen any snakes come out of the ground due to the flooding.

Anyway - just wanted to fill you in my most exciting week thus far at Camp Lemonnier! Will add more information if the rest of this 48 hour shift brings more excitement!

Hope y'all have a great rest of the week!

Mis and love you all!

Ciao!

Kathi