MGS RADAR

I usually (with some exception) don’t write about the things going on in my fire department, but this time it is about myself and a little bit about the daily struggle.

I’m in my department for nearly 5 years (11 years if you count the junior firefighters brigade). I was promoted this year and got my SCBA permission, I got all my trainings and recieved most of the trainings one can archieve in my actual position. I’m the vice leader of the junior firefighters brigade and was the leader for over one year. My next goal is to get the squad leader permission next year and in some time I want to get group-leader. I spent at most 2 evenings at our station, sometimes just for nice talkings with my comrades, sometimes for hard work. I’m now responsible for the emergency medical equipment , which isn’t quite a deal but I have to train my comrades for it.

Last week was the first time where I put my “life in danger”, I went into a burning, over-smoked barn under respiratory protective equipment and sweated like a fucking hog. Normal people wouldn’t spent 20 minutes in a barn full of smoke and room temperature way over 40 degress celsius, but I’m not normal at all - I’m a fucking firefighter.

I don’t like the hero aspect of my work. Many people think that firefighters are heroes, and in fact many firefighters ARE heros but I’m not. I saved some people from disasters, I rescued a few guys from trucks or cars and took care of them. You can say I saved their lives, but that doesn’t make me necessarily a hero. A hero is somebody who goes into a unpredictable and dangerous situation and doesn’t give a shit about his life and maybe the other guys who have to rescue your ass. A hero is somebody who plays russian roulette with his luck and some coincidence.

We are fucking crazy mates in the fire department. Everybody is nuts, sometimes we shit about some procedures and sometimes we push our luck far beyond the protocol. On our last job we normally had to wait until we have a rescue squad manned in our truck, but we just had one squad with none of us as a squad-leader, the machinist and the group-leader. We took a deep shit at the protocol, because we saw smoke in the air and everybody silently agreed to the verbal contract about “Let’s just do this !”

This isn’t heroic, it is stupid but we know any aspect of this. We now that our stupidity will be compensated in some manner which we can’t define exactly, but let’s celebrate it worked!

As I came home and told my girlfriend about it she wasn’t happy, she wasn’t happy about the fact that I went into a burning barn. It was heavy, but it was in some way very cool and a fucking great thing to do, but she did not share my enthusiasm. A day later I checked the weather frequently because some storm came over Mönchengladbach. She declared me fucking crazy. “Stop checking the weather!”

Today I had to pump some basements because of a second storm and I was out from 16:00 to 21:00. I exchanged my chilly afternoon with an afternoon in wet boots and pants down in hot and sweaty basements with lots of dirty water and sitting around hours staring at wet floors and pumped water. I hate it, but I was a part of it.

For over 5 years from now on, I went up in the middle of the night to put out fires at paper-containers. I spent nights loading out collided trucks to turn them over. I stood on the street in pouring rain and waved away cars. On my rare free weekends I went up at 8:00 to go to the firefighters school and get my trainings. After my work where I was tired like fuck, I went to the evening firefighter classes until 11pm. I skipped parties and exchanged it to sweating my ass of in big fires or traffic accidents. Then I did something for fire-department festivals and spent hours in decorating or renovating the halls or cleaning the cars. Besides this I train the junior firefighters and do classes for them until I have no voice.

I cannot do this second work very good without interfering my private life. Everybody in the department knows this, and also the people affected knew this. But their understandment sometimes just lasts three times and after the fourth time it is over. And there is no solution to this point. Nothing but cancelling the whole thing.

This just for beeing a part of it. But this point (beeing a part of it) is the thing that holds our department and firefighters together.

Stephan

["If liberty means anything at all it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear!"]

News get around quickly nowadays, even before it was on the “official media” rumours about Jackson’s death appeared on platforms like Youtube, Twitter or Facebook (User quote: “Is he really dead?”). Radio and TV stations give the issue already plenty of air time right now, but why not lean back and enjoy a poor quality video of Thriller once again - probably my personal favourite of his iconic songs.

I am telling you, just like Elvis he isn’t dead. It’s just all a big hoax so he can get away with his debts. At least we still got his music! You got to give him that: No matter what you think of him as a person, his music connected generations. I remember my mom reading his autobiography some ten years ago, Jackson classics are still being played in the clubs and practically reamain a must in every Best of 80s/90s area. Heck, even my grandparents that spent most of their life under socialism had a word on Jackson’s fate today!

Daniel

It was long due: The status report from Warsaw in a romantic setting of candles. Of course I am speaking about a blackout!

Although not as bad as the one I witnessed a couple of years ago (it lasted for two days!) this one is rather annoying because of frequent power on/offs. The longest period without energy lasted 40minutes between 22:20 and 23:00, followed by strange disruptions that only lasted seconds - just like if there would be somebody sitting next to the power control, hitting the on/off button all the time.

The laptop battery and the wireless Internet really come in handy. If the energy supply goes back to normal (or comes at least back for a while), then I’ll keep broadcasting.

My name is Ollie Williams, MGS Action news!

Daniel

- Finally I got vacation for 4 fucking weeks

- I did NOT manage to get to Friedrichshafen coz the tourist-group was not ready to leave the west german continent

- I did exactly write TWO pages of 12 necessary in my thesis paper about how patients were washed 20-50 years ago

- I saw, that my tendency of sleeping late is my natural, so I have to search for nightshift assignments during my next years

- I’m finally and surprisingly became a tutor in my Volonteer Fire Department for Emergency Medicine and First Aid…no not for the youth firefighters for the adult firefighters

- I went to IKEA….my best investment were BOXES and lots of BOXES and packs of batteries.

- I fucked off the clutch of my car again..200€ investment for new clutch and installment

- I called Fujitsu Siemens for Support of my new Notebook. The fucking EasyLaunch Buttons (okay, I know NOBODY uses these buttons, but I have them and I want them to run!) I was 20 minutes in a computer-voice-guided conversation and after I reached a human who was not able to help me until I have my Ident-Number (WTF is an ident number, I freakin’ don’t know what this is!) ready and the software for assingin these keys should be included in my notebook (I found it , to my surprise, NOWHERE!)

- I got budget coupons for KFC,Burger King and McDonalds which I intent to use often.

- Haven’t eaten much chinese food yet

Stephan

["If liberty means anything at all it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear!"]

Da Deutsch in diesem Blog nun eine Randerscheinung geworden ist, haben wir den Spieß nun etwas umgedreht und eine Kategorie mit DEUSCHEN Einträgen geschaffen, viel Spaß dabei!

 http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/German/Level_I/Freizeit

Lektion 1:

Franz	Hallo, Greta! Wie spät ist es?
Greta	Es ist Viertel vor drei.
Franz	Wirklich? Ich spiele um drei Fußball. Machst du Sport, Greta?
Greta	Nein, ich bin faul. Ich gehe jetzt nach Hause.
Franz	Fußball macht aber Spaß!
Greta	Bis dann.
Franz	Wiedersehen!

Stephan

["If liberty means anything at all it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear!"]

Friday, 19th of June

I thought I knew the enemy! I came on Wednesday, when there was of course nobody working in the Regional Administration for the Voivodeship of Mazowsze, I came too late on Thursday (because it is inhume to bother a civil servant after 3pm!) and now I stood in front of entrance F, keen to find the office that would be able to confirm that I am a Polish citizen. Why you may ask? I COULD own a Polish ID card, I never had one though. Now I am in Warsaw for quite a bit so why the heck not try to get one?

Friday was actually already level 2. The week before I had visited the downtown city hall to file for an ID card without registered place of living (everybody who wants to get an ID card, but is not announcing a place of living within Poland has to go there). A friendly clerk told me there at the information desk that I need

• A) written confirmation from the regional administration that I am a rightful Polish citizen as my Polish passport lost validity last year and
• B) I need to have my birth certificate translated from German into Polish and
• C) possibly – I am not sure anymore – that I need to get my civil status (single/married) confirmed.

I am not that far anyways, so I’ll ask them again at some point later. But the certificate is already translated, time to get that acknowledgement of citizenship! This is my sport now, having finished my last exams last week I now have the time and nerves for the tango with the public administration. Let’s see how long these nerves are going to last. The first test happened right after entering the administrative office via entrance F.

I have been told by the guy from city hall information that I need to take this entrance. This information was correct. However, the corresponding telephone and office number wasn’t. Everywhere where room 38 could have been were offices of the city’s infrastructure administration. Down to the porter, he sends me to entrance B. There I actually find a room 38. I knock, a fat lady sits alone at her desk and smokes heavily. The room’s air is so thick you could cut it with a knive. I explain my cause. She doesn’t understand. I explain yet another time, again she is not following. After the third time she says: “You need to go to another office! On Długa Street! Ask the doorwoman!” Which I do and then I march. After 15min I am there, it’s ten to 3’o clock, meaning the week-end will start soon for the clerks. The entrance is of course wrong, the doorman sends me to the next one. Room 38 proves to be well hidden and not directly pointed out by arrows in the hallway. I pass all the offices where mostly students and workers seem to wait to get some kind of permits for temporary residence. Finally arriving at room 38 I knock – no answer. Knock again – quite. So I just open the door just to see two women being on their respective phones and receiving a harsh: “Can you wait outside?!” So I do - for another five minutes, then finally get in. “Hello, I need to get validation of my status as a Polish citizen”. Upon which the previously harh lady answers: “You need to go to the office at Plac Bankowy, entrance F for that!” And I just wanna scream, but calmly I say that that is where I’ve just been. I learn that I ended up at the city’s administration, that I need to go to the respective office of the voivodeship, and that unfortunately everything has been reorganized. Seems like both offices used to have their seat here. At least I get the info that it’s not room 38 but 415… and actually some understanding, cheering up words.

So to sum it up: Achievements last Friday - None. Apart from the info “room 415”.

The journey to the unknown lands of entrane F continues tomorrow!

First time I hear the English translation of my childhood heroes

Daniel

Das Heben eines Baseballschlägers gegen einen Polizeibeamten, der seine Waffe gezogen und durchgeladen hat ist ausgesprochene Dummheit.

In anderen Ländern (Und ich spreche hier nicht von den USA) hätte dies einen Schuss gegen einen dieser Faschisten zur Folge gehabt (Volkommen zurecht!)

Nazis raus!

Stephan

["If liberty means anything at all it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear!"]

Samstagabend, Schalte zum Website-Hauptquartier. Es war mal wieder an der Zeit über das gestern, heute und morgen dieser Website zu schwadronieren. Wenn das so weiter geht können wir rundes Firmenjubiläum feiern – aber zum 10 jährigen ist es noch was hin, deswegen war eines der vielen Themen ein kleiner Relaunch diesen Sommer. Werte Leserschaft: Lasst Euch überraschen!

Denn auch ich wurde soeben überrascht - nach einem Blick in unsere Besucherstatistiken. Vor meinem geistigen Auge habe ich noch den Besucherzähler vor Augen, der in guten Monaten etwas über 100 individuelle Besucher zählte. Jetzt fällt mir auf: Das war vor ein paar Jahren. Die Statistiken, welche ich bestimmt seit einem guten Jahr keines Blickes gewürdigt hatte, sprechen nun von rund 2000 bis 2500 Besuchern im Monat. Was folgte war erst Überraschung, dann die Genugtuung das sich guter Geschmack eben doch durchsetzt .

Und worauf ist dieses Wachstum zurückzuführen? Nicht etwa schreiberisches Genie, moralische Integrität oder unsere skandinavisch anmutende Zurückhaltung – obwohl all dies zweifelsohne einen wichtigen Beitrag leistet. Nein! Es ist ganz offiziell…

„Unnützes Wissen“,

seit einer halben Ewigkeit landen wir unter diesem Suchbegriff auf Seite eins unter den Google Suchergebnissen. Und auch weiterhin möchten wir mit unserem guten Namen allerhand unnützes verbreiten! Auf die nächsten 2500! Na zdrowie!

Daniel

Sounds like an ill fit to say God bless to a godless ideology?

It works for me – of course from a strictly happy camper / sociologist point of view. The fact that the topic “Marxism and the role of family” has been the most popular essay topic among students on the final Sociology exam, in which I also participated as a guest student, bears some irony. Here I am attending a private business school - in some ways the epitome of capitalist cadre building – in post-socialist Poland, and discuss Marxist Conflict Theory and how traditional family structures reproduce society’s inequalities.

But it was fun to live out the Commi-side and today it was an even nicer surprise to get the grade report. Forgive me the self-cheering, but to quote my co-writer Stephan: It was BAM! Leading the class with a 6. I didn’t even know they actually still assign sixes on university. That’s how they grade in Poland in case you wonder.

Everyone needs to cheer for him- or herself every once in a while. The GoodCheerCompany knows that!

Daniel

I read an article today about the first day of a paramedic on one of the hardest neighbourhood in Los Angeles: Compton and his first call about a suicidal guy shooting himself in the face. Well allthough you cannot compare this to my similar experience, I will read what comes in my mind by reading this story.

Well it was lateshift on a ward which was seperated into the following structure

Room 026: Trauma Surgery, private insurance - 2 beds
Room 027: General Surgery, private insurance - 2 beds
Room 028 - Trauma surgery, private insurance - 2 beds

Room 029 - Room 031: Internal medicine , 3 bed rooms

Room 032 - Room 038: Trauma surgery, mostly ambulatory and short cases but sometimes not.
I was on lateshift with two registered nurses, one intern and myself, nursing student in the first year.

The shift was very busy until 6pm. We had a lot of admissions, a lot of post-operative patients and I wasn’t able to sit down until 6pm. I took my break down in the cafeteria and at 6:30pm I went upstairs. We had to clear the rests of the day, do our last round and then finally the nightshift handover.

We had a patient with a fresh subcapital humeral fracture, first post-op day. She wasn’t able to use her left arm and she was a very weak person and beside that, a very clear and crazy bitch. Unfortunalety she had an urethral infection which forced her to toilet every 30minutes and she was afraid to go there alone, so I had to escort her every time. She had two redon-drainages which had to be changed two to three times because of hefty bleeding, but the surgeon said no intervention.

Well, it was 7:30pm and a registered nurse told me that she is gonna go upstairs for just 5minutes to fetch a medication from Intensive Care Unit (ICU is the second pharmacy in the whole hospital, if you need something that isn’t listed or very rare, go to ICU they have it!) The other registered nurse, my training nurse actually said that she is going to do a lung-function test which is a code for “I’m gonna smoke”. So I planned in my mind that I’m alone for at least 10 minutes.

The old lady with the humeral fracture was on toilet and needed some escort back , the bell rang and I moved there. She had some complaints and needed both her hands washed and this was quite a deal for me.

But suddenly I heard a very loud popping noise, and a short scream of her. I looked at the arm but nothing happened. I sat her down on the toilet because I needed to fetch something and was back in just 20 seconds or so. As I turned her to the side, I saw a trace of blood on her nightgown…”Fuck!” I said loudly and startet to undress her which was also a deal for me because she was in pain. As I removed the nightgown, I saw the bandage of the operation-wound covered in blood and the blood was dripping on the floor. I had quite some ammount of blood on the gown, on the bandage and on the floor. I thought, well damn shit it’s an arterial bleeding, and I pressed the nurses alarm button. But only the intern appeared on the scene and asked me what the fuck am I doing there.

“Well damn straight question, what the fuck do you think I’m doing here I think we got an arterial bleeding !”

We both quickly saw, that we are alone and there was no registered nurse on the scene. I had the phone and with a quick tempered thought I dialed 7112 which is the code blue for emergencies inside the hospital.

“Arterial post-OP bleeding, Ward 4 Room 36!” I yelled through the phone where I searched some bandages to press the wound.

I heard some low-tone steps which pretty much sounded like my training nurse and the alarm was still ringing, she quickly asked me what happened and I said the same to her.

She helped us laying down the patient and she inspected the bleeding…then she smiled…

“Well , I think I know who is going to clean her up after this little bloodstream-party!”

And I said “WHAT?”

“You’re a rookie…you disconnected the drainage tube during moving her to side..did you hear the popping noise? That is the sound of a disconnecting redon-drainage….and the blood from the drainage dripped on the bandage!”

After all of a sudden, the whole shitty scene became worse…4 nurses (the nurse from my ward which was collecting medications from ICU) and the resus team including an old, experienced anaestesiologist arrived with their emergency equipment.

“This is the patient with the arterial bleeding? Okay, does she have a line In case of YES prepare 2 units of HAES and 2 units of Lactated Ringers, order some 0 negative blood and hand me over your whole bandage cart!”

My training nurse was just laughing out loud and said “Well…tell them!”

“Ahh…I just disconnected the redon drainage…I’m uhm…sorry!”

The Anaestesiologist stopped , took a deep breath out and said..

“Despite the fact that I don’t have much of a clue about trauma surgical patients, Me with 20 years of narrow-minded thinking can tell the difference between an arterial bleeding and A FUCKING DISCONNECTED REDON DRAINAGE. I CAN TRAIN A FUCKING RESUS-APE TO TELL THE DIFFERENCE IN 2 DAYS!”

The resus team looked at me with a shallow smile and the team leader said:

“Well, he did everything correct…he was alone…he had no clue…whats the point of asking for help even if you call the big cavalry? A little action for the end of the shift, good job boy!”

I couldn’t believe him;)

Stephan

["If liberty means anything at all it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear!"]