Hi all,
So i'm beat!! I was supposed to have friday thru monday off,which i did. However i got a call friday night and was asked if i wanted a little bit of a change,it seems the fire house closest to my house need a few men to do overtime.It seems that most of thier guys are out hurt,nothing major but there was a big job over here and they got banged up real good.They will all be ok,but they needed some guys to work there and cover the station.This is on overtime and i could use the extra cash,plus i got to call a few friends up and they agreed they would come down and work with me and the fire house is 4 blocks from my house.So this am me and three friends show up for the overtime,Its really quiet around noon we get a run, this is a true story.
We roll on scene and are called to a house for a female 19 "acting very strange" as per the 911 caller. Its a 3 story private house and we are going to the top floor.We get there and the girl is not making any sense at all,her family tell us she is a "good college girl" and i start to wonder.However the "eyes" don't lie and there is no edvience of drugs or drinking.The father tells me his wife has been plague with a bad headache and vomiting over the stress of her daughter "acting out". They tell me it all started last night on a friday.We are in the hallway and the 2nd floor neighbor tells me he saw her in the hallway late last night vomiting and she passed out for a moment.The next door neighbor tells me he has such a headache,i look at bobby i guy i'm working with and he is really having a hard time catching his breath after the 3 story walk up,bobby has some issues with his lungs after the sept 11 trade center collapse,but never did i see him lose his breath so much than today. I start to think i have 2 people in the 3rd floor apt with 1 with headches and vomiting and one that is acting strange and that i know was vomiting last night, i have some guy on the 2nd floor with a headache and one of my guys can't catch his breath.Quickly it hits me i have a major problem here,i know that drugs or drinking is not the problem with the 19 year old girl and there are only one other thing that causes all these people to get sick so quickly.I run to my rig,which is not my normal rig since i'm at a fire house that is not mine on overtime.
I am looking for a little device that will tell me if i have bigger problems here than it appears, all my training tells me i have a major job here,something that you can't see or taste or smell,something that has been known to kill whole familys in thier house as they all slept in bed.There it is, i find it in the rig,nope no fancy computer just something the size of a huge beeper or pager.I walk into the front door and hallway,by the time i hit the second floor i see bobby and he tells me he really can't catch cacth his breath so well,but is ok.On the second floor is where my worst fears come very true and my little device begins to go nuts.Its alarm is going off and i am sure its not a malfuction,but the real thing.This Building is like a toxic time bomb,its infested with carbon monoxide. CO2 is odorless,tasteless and you can't see it,but somehow the buildings boiler is malfuctioning throwing off huge amount of this poision in the air and with the freezing weather everyone who lives in the building has all thier doors and windows tightly shut,so the stuff is trapped and building up.I have a reading of 400 parts per million which will kill a bird in 2 hours flat(for some reason birds are really sensitve to the stuff and will die quicker than a human and thats why in the old days submarines always have at least one or two birds on board,before detecters)BTw 400 parts is very high.
Reason why the young girl had such advanced symptons is because her "boyfriend: lived in the basement where the boiler is and spent the whole day with him yesterday in the basement, so the good news about 16 people ended up going to the hospital from the 3rd,2nd,1st floors and basement apts.Everyone will be ok,bobby had small traces of co2 in his blood strem but will be fine and refused to go to the hospital,i keep an eye on him and within minutes of being in the fresh air outside felt better and only had a minor headache which 2 asaprin helped,i checked his blood-co2 levels every 30 mins and within 2 hours he had none in his blood.Our chief gave the super of the building a $300 summons for failure to have co2 alarms in the building,which is nyc law.I know sounds mean but had this happened at night they would have went to sleep and died,so maybe the summons will force the owner to put the co2 alarm in and will save a life or 2 next time.Today everyone will live in this buliding,however the young girl and her boyfriend had very advanced late stages of co2 poisioning,they both will be fine.The chief said he was gonna put the whole crew in for a medal,but i told him it was not really necessary.
So thats the story,now your wondering why was it so important to read this mrFDNY???I hope you figured it out already,but if you did not.GO AND BUY,NOW not tomorrow or later co2 meters for your house and if you already have them make sure the battires are good for the winter, 95% of co2 poisionings happen in the winter. CO2 is odorless,tasteless and you can't see it at all,by the time you have symptons you already have been poisioned and have amounts in your blood that are too high. One of the symptons is sleepyness, imagine you always go to bed at 11pm and its 10:30 pm and you start to feel very tired,but you been running around all day,you know the kids shopping,making dinner,clleaning the house and so on ,so you go to bed 30 minutes early never to wake again as well as your family.
It's a mystery every day which child you will get! Fun son, evil son, PIA son, silly son, dont-care son, attitude son, mom-is-satan son, I love life son, Im better, smarter, cooler and stronger than everyone in this family son, I cant wait until Im 18 cuz Im outta here son, I love you guys son! Think of it as a 'grab bag' of emotions!
I love not knowing WHAT to expect or WHEN for that matter.... good times, good times. Its tapering off, but it's been a joy. Just a poor joy.
Too funny. I am lucky Ryan is overall a sweet and loving kid. But boy let me tell you, there are times when I am SURE he is all his father's kid! 
Thanks for the hope though Cat! 
Makes me feel better! 
Thanks PJ. I guess I should start a savings account for "Items broken and/or smashed through by Ryan's fist!" 
you should open your SS 
Got one and changed batteries when I changed time for the DST... thanks PJ!!! 
