Day 3 – A funny day with the D Shift

Sixth Ward

Today was real fun. The guys from the D Shift are really cool. They make a lot of fun and they remind me of my crew back in Germany. Today we didn’t have time for it, but I hope the next time we’re on duty, I can put a picture of all of us online.

As usual I was on the pumper today.

We had four calls. The first one in the morning was a gas leak, caused by a digging crew that screwed up the gas pipe, which was a real big one. We blocked the street for cars and people and waited for the HazMat-Team, but as they arrived even they couldn’t fix the leak so we had to wait for the gas company to fix it and to turn off the gas pipe with a valve.

The two calls after that were first-responding calls, though the second one was much more interesting, because we had a lady with breathing problems who at first refused to go to hospital although she could hardly breathe. What was even worse, she couldn’t pay the electricity company so they turned that off and we found her sitting in her house that was lit with candles and awful smoky air in there. One could really see the haze in the light of our flashlights. Finally we convinced her and an ambulance from 11th took her to hospital.

The fourth call got us out of bed at 4.15 am. Another gas leak kept us busy, because the leak was below ground under one of the busiest streets in Houston. We had to evacuate the whole area near Downtown Police Station because the gas had already filled the sewer system.