a call came in recently. Two vehicles involved, entrapment, and one on fire.

After swimmin there through the adrenalin. I find that a heads up trucker had put out the fire. We made short work out of cuttin the recycled soda cans out from around a lil'ol'lady.

Considerin a compound fracture on her left thigh, and two between her right knee and ankle, she was holdin up real good.

When the Paramedics and EMTs went to transfer her onto the gurney they hit a snag though. Ever time they went to lift, she'd start yelling to stop. She was complaining that her feet were still trapped and she couldn't feel nuthin but that were still hot and burning.

They weren't, and the fire just heated up the firewall while her feet were pinned against it. It was just memory.

With the laws involved these days, the registered/certified caregivers can't even discuss extent of injuries with the injured party. And when she says stop, they're obliged.

Since I dropped out four months into 1st Responder training when we got to the legal ramifications part, I was left to play the role of the bad guy.

I told her,"Mam, I'm just a fireman, but you've got both legs broken. When they move you, it's going to hurt no matter how they do it. The longer it takes, the more the feeling is going to return and it's going to hurt worse. If you think you can tough it out for just a few seconds, you'll be safely in the ambulance and on your way to the hospital to get something for the pain."

She complied, and the medics did their thing. It hit a snag when nobody was in place to support her feet. Since I was dressed in full bunker gear I was acting as a shield for the jagged metal where we'd cut the door off and peeled the top back. That put me in position to lean in, with my heavy fireproof gloves rather than latex, and realigned her feet to her legs until they laid her down again.

Afterwards while sanitizing my gloves of 'body fluids' in a state of disassociation, I flashed back to times when in just such a state I'd been washing Huey floors.

Afterwards, I asked my Chief if I'd overstepped the safety of 'good samaritan' and tort protection. He had no complaints about that.

He was pissed that I'd filled his butt crack with glass when I punched out the back window though. He'd been sitting in the back seat, with his arms lifted above sholder high to manually stabilize her neck. When I warned them that I was punching the glass they'd covered her with a sheet, but he'd forgotten how high up a big man's crack can go.

He's a good EMT, but still has some to learn about being Chief. If he'd have taken on his rightful duty as Incident Commander and left patient care to subordinates...

We all done good though. Got good local press. And him shakin handfulls of glass out his britches legs and walkin funny was an excellent tension breaker for us after the meatWagon left.