Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night...

You call 911, we come. Good weather, rain, day or night, even tornadoes ( http://mommy-medic.blogspot.com/2008/05/tornado-long-but-i-will-throw-in-some.html ). Snowstorms are no exception. It may take us a bit longer to get there, but we are on our way. Here in metro Atlanta, snowstorms shut the city down. People rush to Wal-mart to buy milk and bread and eggs and PS3 games and beer and generators in a frenzy. When it snows here, it usually melts and disappears a few hours later. When it snows here it only does it about once a year. I lived in Minnesota for a while. I like the snow that lasts a few hours and is gone, not a few months and is piled 10 feet high at every intersection.

It snowed here recently. Only it didn't melt. It accumulated to around an inch. Then it froze solid overnight. The next day, it started to melt, then refroze to the most slippery, solid, crystalline slick known to mankind. It was a very busy shift. One of our first calls was to shut a road down that had become too slippery to traverse. I was driving the engine. the engine is big, heavy, carrying 1000 gallons of water at a little over 8 pounds per gallon, and has soft brakes. It was very slow going. The ambulance and rescue truck got there first, and parked halfway up the snow covered hill. I parked the engine on level ground at the base of the hill. Four cars had already slid off the roadway and two others were stopped and stuck. A police car was skidding up the hill. I put the wheel chocks down and began the hike up the hill to meet with my crew and formulate a plan for removing the cars and closing the road until they could get some salt down. I was looking down at the ground so as not to slip when my radio came alive with traffic. I couldn't make out what was being said but whoever way saying it was pretty worked up. It sounded strangely familiar, almost as if it were one of my guys. I looked up in time to hear a "pshhhhh....squeeeeeeeeeeeeeeak" sound and watched in dumbfounded horror as a liquid propane tanker slid sideways down the hill, missing the ambulance and the rescue by inches. My crew grabbed a lady that had been in a car and they all ran for the ditch. Thankfully the truck driver was able to straighten it out and coast down the hill. I ran and ducked back behind the engine and waited for him to pass. I happened to look to the side of the road and see a makeshift cross and a shredded tire in the snow- signs of previous wrecks and bad omens.

We managed to get the people out of their cars and get the roadway shut down. The county road department came some time later and put down salt and gravel. We had several other calls all day long. No real life threatening emergencies, but a lot of calls for service and help came in. One of the later calls that night was for a man who couldn't get his catheter to drain correctly. In order to get to his house, we had to take a left turn at the top of a 60 foot embankment with no guard rail. The ambulance was first and slowed to a crawl before attempting the turn. the vehicle started out great, then lost all traction in the slick packed ice and began sliding straight for the drop off. My partner in the rescue jumped out, grabbed the wench, and kept the ambulance from falling off the ridge. The ambulance was pulled back to safety, then the guys decided to take the long way around, adding a few miles to the trip but avoiding the hill in the process.

I can't wait for all this to melt and go away again! It was a really long shift and everyone was glad to see the oncoming crew come sliding in to the parking lot the next morning.