Previous Challenge Entry
Topic: Water (04/26/04)
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TITLE: Firefighters Love Water By Cindy Bonner 04/28/04 |
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One time, a fire station got a call from someone passing the river. They said a curious thing. They reported the river on fire.
So the station suited up and away they went, on the ground and in the air. In the helicopter were 4 of the team, men and women. All were geared in oxygen masks and tanks on their backs. These suits are designed to cover every part of a person’s body.
Once they reached the river, they could see that there were barges on fire, not just one, but three had flames going higher and stronger with each passing second. The ones carrying the fuel for airplanes were safer that those carrying empty barrels because the empty ones had fumes for the flames to feed on. The full ones were sealed against the air, so they were all right.
The team in the air was told to jump on the barge in the middle of the river and save the people who remained on board. Then they began to jump and land on the barge, which was full of flames.
First one landed, she was off center and landed on the side of the barge and she broke her leg and then she fell in the river.
The second one went and he also broke his wrist and somehow landed wrong, but something else happened, the fire started on his suit and he jumped in the water quick, before he could not recover.
The third landed in the middle of the barge where he thought he could do the most good. But something terribly wrong happened. All of the sudden his fire-protective suit, did not protect like it should have. In seconds he was engulfed in flames inside and outside of the suit. Only his facemask kept the fire away from his face.
Quick as he could move he jumped into the water of the river. Which quenched the fire immediately.
The fourth person also jumped and was burned by the fire right away. He also jumped into the water for the fire licked at his suit.
The team from search and rescue were now rescuing their own men and women from the scene of the fire.
They fished them out of the water and as quick as they could, sent them to the local hospital. They were treated as quickly as humanly possible. None of the four were released, even though the burns on a few were only minor, because they had fallen into the water before the fire could reach them.
The barge was saved, and it’s cargo, by the rest of the team working together. But they went back to the hospital with heavy hearts, for not all of them had been safe from the fire.
The man, who had landed in the center of the barge, had emergency surgery right away. His burns extended to arms, legs, back and tummy. Skin grafts had to be placed in each area.
Now the fire chief and the search and rescue officer had to investigate what went wrong with the suits. Why didn’t they do their job?
What they found out horrified everyone in the station.
The dry cleaning company assigned to care for the uniforms of the team had told a new employee to get all of the clothes lying around. Well, fire suits stand ready next to each truck in readiness. This young person, not knowing why they were there, picked them up and put the suits in, so they could be dry-cleaned.
For some reason, no one caught the error at the dry-cleaning company.
They did not realize when the fire resistant material is dry-cleaned, it changes the fabric of the material and it lets in air, which is bad when you are trying to keep the air in and the fire out.
It was all resolved to everyone’s satisfaction. But it still remains that a man was seriously injured because of the error.
His saving grace was the water in the river.