12/25/2016
Ok... I just now realized I forgot to tell the back story to this photo I shared last month! I know by now most of you may have heard about the Explosion that rocked down town Canton Illinois 1745hrs November 16th 2016. Heck it made world news even in Australia!!! LOL Wow goes to show how scatter brained a medic student can be.
November 16th My partner and I were on shift in Ipava this little podunk town in the southern part of Fulton County I think population of maybe 500 people...maybe. So around 1745 (05:45pm for those unfamiliar with military time lol habit) we received a call for an "explosion" up town in Canton. (From Ipava Canton is approx. 45minutes away.) So my partner and I jumped in the truck for what thought was going to be a short "Post".(Post is when we would drive to Lewistown in the Middle of the county to spread out or trucks and have better response times.) As we drove closer and closer to 136/24 junction radio traffic squelched across Canton and Fulton Fire with requests of mutual aid and needs of additional resources. We knew this was a lot bigger than we orginally thought. (Thoughts: Methamphetamine explosion...) We flipped on the lights and started up the sirens as we tried to get a hold of our other units to let them know we were en route. For the first time in a while, I could feel the adrenaline just thinking of all the possible traumatic injuries and how many victims there may possibly be. When we arrived on scene the sight was just...undiscribable... there was debris everywhere! Like a bomb just dropped. There were people standing everywhere gazing at the wreckage with disbelief. What shocked me were that people were walking towards it and not only out of the bars just down the block, but some even had their kids! Bricks lay in a massive heaping pile and scattered across the road and even into parking lots. Metal beams where bent and twisted, 2x4s thrown up and down the street and scattered about, and glass was everywhere. I carefully maneuvered the ambulance around bricks, glass, and the shards of metal. The old Opera house was exposed from the back and you could see the floors v inward on itself. The small beauty shop was gone and now in a pile of ruble. We found a "safe" spot on the back side in the adjacent parking lot to the scene they now referred to as "ground zero". My partner and I grabbed our gloves and portables and exited the truck. You could hear the roar of v***r pushing out of a pipe that had ruptured. Natural gas. Our supervisor gave us our assignments and we went to work. That night only one person lost their life. He was an AMERN worker, an apprentice, 34 years young. 4 more were injured but survived. We stumbled in back at Base 2 around 11 or so told the guys that came in to cover us the stories of our night and went on with our shift like we always do.
Because it's our job... There are a lot of people over the years who have thanked me and I never really do know what to tell them except "I'm just doing my job." to which normally is said back to me "It takes a special person to do what you do and I don't know how you do it but Thank you!" To me personally I love this Job and I could not picture myself doing anything else. It takes caring individuals yes I agree but the majority of people who work in this field are messed up. We DO NOT EVER wish harm on anyone but do we enjoy helping people yes! No matter how goreie it maybe we enjoy our line of work other wise no one would do it right? God made us special and messed up for a reason to help others when no one else else would dare to. Thank us if you want but I feel "Good Job!" Fits a bit better.
Back to the letters! It wasn't till the day after or the 18th I think that one of the local schools drew and wrote thank you letters for us. Reading through them together we all had a good chuckle at what they wrote. Kids...it never ceases to amaze me at the innocence! 😊😄
A couple of my favorites:
-Thank you for saving us I'm glad you didn't die.
-Thank you emts
We are very thankful for our First Responders today❤️
