Since I am in a sharing mood. I feel like discussing the horrific events that I have seen in my former years as a volunteer firefighter.
A wonderful experience it was as a whole. There were still some very haunting moments that plague my mind to this day.
I was in High School at this point in time. I always kept my radio in my truck in case I get a call when I left... Sure enough, one day that thing went off and said "Winnie/Stowell Volunteer Fire Department please be en rout to a 1050 Major (Code for: Bad Wreck)"
Only this was not a bad wreck like you would expect it to be. It was not some pile up, or a collision of two or more vehicles. Nope, it just so happened to be a Motorcycle. A Crotch Rocket to be exact. This guy had the bright idea to nearly top 200MPH on his bike on a highway.
He was going so fast that he did not notice the gaping pot hole in front of him. His front tire hit it, and threw him and the bike head over tail for over 100 yards.
it LITERALLY tore him down to nothing! The same thing happened with his bike. Where his remains ended, his bike began several feet onward. Just a heap of remains in front of what was seemingly red paint.
There was nothing we could do really, besides clear the bike and create a containment zone. Just seeing something like that, gave me a new outlook and gratefulness to be alive. The dumbest of things can go so wrong so fast.
Literally, this guy was alive just a few minutes ago at that moment. And then, gone.
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STORY 2
This one was during the aftermath of Hurricane Ike. (Now you can guess where I live) We got called out to help search and rescue after the storm had passed. We had to go down to the beach, which was 15 minutes from us. This storm reshaped out entire coast line! Houses, land, everything was gone into the gulf!
The place pretty much looked like the wasteland in Fallout 3. Only much more surreal.
Well, once we were on scene. We started off searching the houses on the Bay side. The houses were nothing more than twigs and the cars were all piled together in the water, or buried half way in the sand. We started searching this one ruined house, and what we found was (for lack of a better word) horrifying.
Four bodies were there, covered in sand and pale as the clouds. It was very easy to tell that they were a family because it was a Husband and Wife, and two children!!!!!
GOD DAMN CHILDREN!!!!! No more than 7 years AT LEAST!
They had marking on their arms. It was faint, but you could still make it out. They wrote their social security numbers on each of their arms for identification.
Now, before the storm hit the entire area was under MANDATORY evacuation orders. Yet these people stayed, and kept their children in harms way. I don't know them, but to put your own kids in that kind of place with a storm coming!?
I still don't know what possessed them to believe that it as a good idea to this day... An entire family, gone because they did not head the warnings.
If only you could imagine my anger when I saw this!
In a way, me doing those youtube videos helps get my mind off of it.
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My father is a volunteer firefighter. I support the cause.