2 for 7

It is 7:30 am and C-Shift doesn’t officially take over Station 16 for another thirty minutes. I am on B-Shift and right now we are recapping the night and enjoying a cup of hot coffee in the kitchen. We do this often as the off-going crew helps to get the on-coming crew up to speed. We chat about calls and training and most importantly turn over any information regarding the rigs and equipment we used. At 7:45 am the tones go off and we are informed of a man down on the fishing pier, CPR in progress. Often times we hear, "CPR in progress" and it comes to nothing; but not this time. Aid 16, Medic 17, Engine 17 and Battalion 16 respond to the fishing pier to see a small group of folks standing near the end of the five hundred foot long L-shaped pier. We unload all our gear and banter back and forth about the call, the length of the walk to the end of the pier and if the guy caught a fish. As we begin our march out, the group of people parts and we see a young man doing chest compressions. CPR in progress, indeed. Our level of intensity ratchets up a couple notches. The Medics lead the way with the rest of us in tow carrying aid kits and a defibrillator. I am marching out beside my BC and we discuss the possibility of the guy going down after catching a salmon. We arrive, take over active CPR, establish and airway and assist his breathing with a Bag Valve Mask. Now you must understand we don’t do CPR on live people. This guy is down on a cement pier not breathing and pulse-less. He is, for all intents and purposes, dead. We all work smoothly as a team. My Capt and I switch off with compressions and bagging. The medics hook up a monitor and begin and EKG. An IV is prepped and a line is established. The medic getting the needle into the patient’s arm begins to speak Vietnamese to the small crowd of Asian gentlemen standing around in hopes one of them might understand and help with a history of what happened and who our patient is. It doesn’t work. They all look at each other with puzzled faces and stop talking amongst themselves. A second Medic unit arrives and begins to assist. We have been doing compressions and bagging him for about 2 minutes when we have the defibrillator analyze his hear rhythm to see if he needs a shock to stimulate his heart to reestablish a heart rate. The d-fib shocks him and it works for about ten seconds then his heart goes back to a condition called ventricular tachycardia. V-tach is when the bottom of the heart muscle is fluttering out of sync with the rest of the heart muscle. The muscle fibers that make up the tissue that usually constricts and relaxes as one unit are not working together. The shock is a way we can oftentimes "reset" the entire hearts and get the fibers to constrict and relax as one large muscle mass. It is working, kind-of. We continue with CPR and the Medics follow their course of treatment with several meds designed to get the patient’s heard going again. We shock him four more times and each time the heart beats on its own for a few extra seconds. It is encouraging. We are keeping his blood circulating with the physical pressure created by the compressions and with each successive shock his heart is fighting to regain is position of pumping blood. As we work the thought of the situation plays out in our heads. There is a little pool of blood on the ground near the patient and we discover it is fish blood. Now most of us are fishermen and we can’t help but look around for and absent fish. A bystander with a camera phone states he took a picture just prior to the man going down. I look at my BC, who is scribing all the details and drug information on the back of small scrap of paper, and smile, our suspicions were accurate. He caught a thirty-plus inch King Salmon and had a heart attack. I ask the photographer what the time stamp is on the photo and then inform the medics that CPR started at 7:38, it is now past 8:00. CPR has been active for over twenty minutes. We begin to discuss getting the patient on a bed and to the hospital. As we discuss how this will happen we continue to think, "Where the heck is the fish?" A gurney is delivered and we strip all the pads to have a hard surface in case we need to continue CPR en route. The patient is loaded quickly and we are off to the Medic unit for transport to Stevens Hospital. While walking to the rigs I notice a small piece of paper fall from the full hands of my BC. It looks suspiciously like the note pad containing every bit of information about how the call went, what meds have been used and time stamps of each dose. It flutters to the edge of the pier and silently falls all the way to the ocean below. A bystander hears me mumble that we will need that piece of paper and he willingly climbs over the edge past the barbed wire and the "No Trespassing" sign to the rocks below. He wades knee deep to retrieve the paper and returns in less than a minute wet to his knees. A police officer on scene jokes that he won’t get in trouble for the climb. We load our patient and head out to the hospital continuing CPR and shocks each time getting more and more response from the traumatized heart muscle. I am tasked with driving the Medic unit. The four medics in the back are moving about in the rig while I drive and inform me that I need to drive slowly and carefully as we only have a seven minute trip and we are not in a huge rush. Right now the patients’ condition is improving and he is responding to the meds. As we arrive the medics try on last medication and we rush the patient inside to the waiting cardiac team. We give a short report and history to the team, direct the family to his side and depart the room to get back into service. Our work is done. Later that day we learn he was transferred to ICU for continued observation. What that means is our dead patient is now alive and expected to recover. A save, we got a save, in part thanks to the quick action of the bystander with the phone who had taken a CPR class. I am now 2 for 7 on CPR calls. A week later we are informed by the hospital staff that the gentleman walked out under his own power. He was taken home by his thankful family and fed a salmon dinner, his salmon. Apparently his buddy claimed the fish and put it into a cooler right as the gentleman went down with the heart attack. The news of his condition was delivered to our station by one of the medics and was greeted with handshakes and congrats on work well done. We all took part and worked the call well and the man survived an attack by the Fire Department. If you haven’t had a CPR class, take one. You never know when you might need it, hopefully you won’t. Tony

Mobile foundation removal complete!

After four days of breaking and hauling, the four ribbon slab foundations from the mobile home are now gone!! Woohoo!! We rented a CASE 580 backhoe with a breaker bar and a diamond blade saw from Eastside Rentals in Bellevue/Redmond. Doug, one of the owners, was fantastic aiding me with the right piece of big equipment and training me on it in the yard prior to rental. I would highly suggest these guys if you ever need heavy equipment. The machine handled the slabs great. They ranged in thickness from 6 inches to 3 feet! The thicker chunks took a bit more work but we got them moved off. The breaker bar attachment, kind of like a gigantic jackhammer, popped thru most of the cement with no problem. Here it is breaking up the old mobile driveway. I had a ton of help from a few friends and would have not been able to complete the task in four days with out them. The vast majority of the chunks of cement are being used by my neighbor as fill. So we didn't have to pay to have it all hauled to the recycler.

After the cement was removed we switched out the breaker bar for a normal bucket and dug the trenches for the water and electrical lines. Now all is covered and ready for winter. We are hoping to get more work done if the weather allows. We will need a good stretch of dryness to get a truck in with soil and rock. We are planning on using 1 to 1 1/2 man basalt rock for the retaining wall to tie in with the basalt raised beds on the north and south of the house. Paul out at Pine Creek Nursery has been a great help with decisions on the rock and hardscaping. He's got a great place out on Hwy 2 off Sophie road. So for now we have a large soupy semi-level mud pit for a backyard, perfect for raising two boys.

Here is the view from the master bedroom after all the cement was taken off. The remaining slab was the old garage and will become a second level to the patio. We will surround it with raised beds of similar basalt rock and stairs off the back then acid stain it a dark olive/brown. The upper patio will match up to the front and back slabs for a walk around effect. It will reach out about 30 feet into the the backyard with access to the main house through the double doors. There will be three sets of stairs from the upper patio to the yard. (Completion date projected to be in the fall of 2011.)

We are also getting ready to head out to Scotland for the Adventure Travel and Trade Summit. We are good friends with the Prez and he is flying us out to help run the event. While we are out there I will be running in the Baxters Loch Ness Marathon. I will update as events unfold. hopefully with pictures from Scotland.

Tony

Tatoosh Lake Hike

For an end of the summer trip the boys and I joined with a couple guys from work to hike in to the Tatoosh Lakes near Packwood on the south side of Mount Rainier.

The trip was an incredible success. We started out with the long drive and a couple Geocaches along the way. The boys had to climb up a small cliff to find the first cache. Then we met up with Jim and Dennis at Jim's parent's cabin just north of Packwood. The next morning we departed for a quick drive to the trail head. There were a few cars already there and we feared the lake would be full of people. The hike began with 2+ miles of uphill switchbacks through dense stands of cedar, hemlock and fir. We broke out of the woods and traversed across lush sloping meadows to an exposed saddle. As we had the saddle in view we could see a party of about fifteen traversing to the summit of Tatoosh Peak past the cutoff to the lake. This pleased both me and the boys knowing there would most likely be no one at the lake, and added a little energy to the hike. We attained the saddle with renewed energy and continued down the mile or so descent to the lakes. The hike was more strenuous then I anticipated and the boys were real troopers. They made it about two hours in (2 miles or so) before the first, "Are we there yet." I engaged the back up plan quickly getting out the gummy geckos, granola bars and other trail-bribes to calm them for a bit.

Once we hit the saddle and the lakes were in view it was game over and I found it hard to keep the boys from running down the trail. Above is Gabe doing a little trail running of his own.

The camping and fishing was the best ever. Jon and Gabe hit the lakes and ripped open the packs to get at the fishing gear and start.

We set up camp next to the larger of the two lakes and settled in for two days of hanging out and fishing in the woods. The lake was crystal clear and full of perfect sized cutthroat and rainbow trout. All the wildflowers were in full bloom; lupine, paintbrush, heather, and a bunch more.

The rest of the day we fished and settled in. Dinner was a wonderful chicken Alfredo with veggies followed by cocoa and smoores. The next morning was cool and beautiful. We fished all day, landing about 40 or so fish. We kept enough for dinner and enjoyed the fresh trout meal. There was a friendly dad and daughter camping next to the smaller lake just for the night. they greeted us when they arrived and pretty much kept to themselves, enjoying the get-away.

Later in the day we were visited by the local ranger who welcomed us, commented on our perfect choice of timing and location, complimented us on bring the kids into the woods and then informed us that the lake was closed to overnight and campfire use. He regretfully had to cite us (and our neighbors) for camping in a closed area. The fine was not outrageous and he gave us a break due to passing, what he called the "attitude test". As you can see from the posting on the trail head sign (small print) we should have been fined $100/ tent ($300) and an additional $100 for the campfire.

He allowed us to stay in camp for the remainder of the day and the night due to the lateness of the day and the fact that moving the kids would be difficult. All in all he was a very reasonable ranger; just doing his job. We were a bit surprised that such an incredible place was ours for the taking. I guess we know why now.

The final morning we awoke to high clouds and a really cool temps. The clouds broke shortly after breakfast allowing us to comfortably fish for a bit without worry of weather. We soon began breaking camp and made our way out.

The boys found the need to do their standard pose prior to departing the site. The hike out was uneventful and went by in half the time of the hike in. When we reached the car and Jon knelt to pray. Thankful the hike was DONE. After the the drive back to the cabin we took a quick dip in the community pool prior to loading up for the ride home. All in all a great time for me and the boys. This was their first real hiking trip carrying their own packs. I am very proud of them.

Tony

Banana Boy

Hard to say much about this photo of Gabe from the Monroe fair...

Tony