Strike?

Controversial maybe - am I the only one who thinks Firefighters should not be allowed to go on strike - especially on bonfire night (for our US readers this is the one night of the year when we Brits get to release our pyromaniac tendancies and celebrate an attempt to blow up Parliament in 1605 by lighting fires and setting off explosives??!!)

Recent headlines in the papers suggest the London Fire Brigade are considering strike action on Bonfire Night, more here

C'mon guys - get a grip...

Wild Goose Chase

So, couple of nights back my beauty sleep (god knows I need it) is disturbed at 1am by the familiar tones of an SMS message pinging my phone. Sleepily checking the message it appeared that someone had decided to take a swim in one of the local rivers.

As is usual with these jobs we put a call into the ops room and let them know we're responding then head to the station to meet up and collect the truck. On arrival at the station I met up with my colleague for the evening our SO aka Von Shorthausen, we hopped in the truck and headed out to the incident.

It only took about ten minutes to get on scene and we were quite surprised to see that in addition to our vehicle there also approx five fire appliances, three police vehicles, one ambulance and the local inshore rescue boat and support vehicle. In addition to this we also had the police whirlybird hovering above.. must have been a quiet night!

Any way the upshot of this is that after an hour searching it appeared that the chap did go in the river but there were muddy footprints leading out which suggest that he obviously thought it too cold for a swim and decided better of it.

At present police are still trying to trace this character and it goes down in the book as another unresolved.

Oh well at least I managed to get back to bed before sun rise.

Call out to threatened suicide

Just about to start a new level on Battlefield Bad Company 2 last night when the familiar message tone sounded on my phone.

***FULL TEAM REQUIRED 2 POSSIBLE JUMPERS AT ******* BRIDGE, LOCAL RESCUE BOAT ALSO TASKED***

Called the Ops room to be advised that it was believed that two teenagers were holding hands on the bridge and threatening to jump, advised them that I would go direct as I live within a couple of minutes of the scene, our Deputy Station Officer (affectionately known as 'The Bear') would follow up from the station in the Coast Rescue Vehicle.

As is often the case with these jobs once I arrived on scene I was advised that the kids in question hadn't been seen on the bridge and it was believed they were currently making their way there. According to the father of one of them the was 'Totally out of character for them'

In the meantime I was notified that 'The Bear' was now en route with the Coastguard truck and two other colleagues (Coastie 03 and 04) were also attending, this was starting to look like it would turn into a search. At this point I was relocating to a vantage point on the bridge approach road and came across two PC's who advised me that they believed the two youths had now been located and were 'accompanying' officers off the bridge (how they'd got there without being seen by all the camera's / police is anyones guess)

So that was that a stand down was broadcast to all CG / Rescue resources then back home in time to catch the second half of 'Seven Ages of Britain'

Don't know if it's just me but over the last few years it seems that an increasing number of these threatened suicides are by kids in their mid to late teens / and early twenties. Just seems kind of sad that they feel things are so bad that this is the only way out.

OK - here goes

Well - I've been following a number of blogs for some time now and it seems like a good time to take to plunge and have ago at this. I can't promise to be as lucid or as interesting as some of the greats, see Tom Reynolds, Medic999 and Joe Schmoe for examples of the ones I look up to.

A little bit about me, I have been a Coastguard Rescue Officer with HM Coastguard for the last 15 years, we used to be Auxiliary Coastguards when I started but fell prey to the dreaded re branding about two years ago. This is a 'voluntary' role that fits in around my full time job as an IT Analyst (oh the stories I could tell about Windows Server - but I'll try and keep those to a minimum, don't want to lose my only reader just yet :) )

Anyway in the last fifteen years I've seen a few interesting things - from a plane crash in the local estuary to flood response work in two Yorkshire Cities. I hope to use this blog to post details of my experiences as they happen as well as relay my own thoughts and feelings on any number of things.

That's about enough for now - hope you enjoy the ride, I'll try to keep it entertaining.