RobertSchapiro.net

Sunday, May 13, 2007

...As it turned out, the patient, an 80-some year old woman, dying of lung cancer, was smoking a cigarette while on home oxygen. She burned off most of her face and all of her hair. (It's because of people like this that we have Darwin awards.) It took me the rest of the day to get the smell of burned flesh out of my mind.

Read the whole story and see the photos.
(Posted: 2007/05/15)

Friday, May 4, 2007

Today I started my job as a commercial helicopter pilot. The job involves flying over the Chesapeake Bay, taking photos of boats. I work for a guy who owns his own Robinson R22 and sells the photos to the boat owners. After lunch, my boss told me that he would have to drop me off at Tipton Airport for about two hours while he picked up a photographer for another photo job.

Read the whole story.
(Posted: 2007/05/14)

Monday, April 09, 2007

Welch and I were running A-66 today. After an afternoon of squirreling calls, Welch received a phone call telling him that he is now allowed to drive again, which was a seemingly meaningless event. We decided that on the next call and through the rest of the day he would drive.

Read the whole story and see the photos.
(Posted: 2007/04/09)

Monday, March 26, 2007

Those of you who know me, or at least know my reputation, know that I'm a very squirrely guy. I've pull some crazy shit at the firehouse before, but what I did today really takes the cake.

Read the whole story and see the photos.
(Posted: 2007/03/31)

Sunday, October 08, 2006

Every year Howard County Fire and Rescue holds its annual public safety expo for Fire Safety Month. In all but one year since I joined the fire dept. 5 years ago, I've worked the expo. This years was a little bit different. In years past, the expo was held at the Columbia Lakefront, which was perfect because it was very visible from the mall and Little Patuxent Parkway. Also in years past it was known as the "public safety expo" because it involved both the fire and police departments. This year the expo was held at Oakland Mills High School and it did not involve the police department.

Read the whole story and see the photos.
(Posted: 11/02/2006)

Saturday, October 07, 2006

It's been several years since we've had an open house at the Savage Volunteer Fire Company. We used to have them every year during the month of October, for Fire Safety Month, but recently because of logistical problems, it's been cancelled. This year, mostly due to the proactive administration in office, we had the most successful open house in the history of our fire station.

Read the whole story and see the photos.
(Posted: 11/02/2006)

Sunday, July 16, 2006

I wasn't going to post anything about Sunday In The Country this year because I didn't have that much to say, but Hot Robin Lancaster insisted, so I decided to put up a little blurb.

This year the powers that be divided the Sunday In The Country EMS coverage into two divisions - VIP Division and North Division. To my luck, I was the Division Commander of the VIP Division. We covered all EMS on the east side of Merriweather Post Pavilion. Based on previous years, I knew that it wouldn't be a cakewalk, but this year was full of excitement. Throughout the day, in my division alone, we treated approximately 75 patients, mostly for heat related illnesses, but some for OH intoxication. I didn't have to do much EMS. Actually, I only remember handing out one Band-Aid ®, but don't think that made my job easy. I had to coordinate two ambulances, two paramedic units, a gator, a bike team, and two additional non-EMS (but very helpful nonetheless, you know who you are) staff. In all, I had 19 personnel under my command.

Read the whole story and see the photos.
(Posted: 07/30/2006)

Saturday, May 27, 2006

Personally, I'm a DC101 guy myself (God bless Elliot In The Morning), but for years I've been saying how much I would love to work EMS at the HFStival and for the first time in 16 years, my wish came true.

Read the whole story and see the photos.
(Posted 06/11/2006)

Saturday, April 29, 2006

For the third year in a row Chris Shannon invited A-66 to do an EMS standby at the Columbia Ice Rink for the Howard County Heat's Annual Hockey Tournament. This year they were facing the PG County Police, and this year was the best game yet. For starters it was much more popular than in previous years, but more importantly Shannon, in his infinite ability to waste tax-payer's money managed to get four different police helicopters to land in the field outside the ice rink.

He coordinated with the Maryland State Police to get Trooper 8, the Howard County Police to get Howard County Air 1, the PG County Police to get PG Air 2, and the U.S. Park Police to get Eagle 1.

Read the whole story and see the photo slideshow.
Posted: 05/01/2006

February 10, 2006

After almost two years of work, I am finally releasing my first book, the Squirrel Handbook. The book is essentially a guide for everything one needs to know to ride the front seat (and drive) the ambulance, specifically, Ambulance 66. Ideally I could have made a generic handbook, but I believe this guide would be a better teaching tool if it were customized for my ambulance. I hope to have it published in printed format within the next week or so. Until then, feel free to download it from my website.

Read the whole story and download the book.
(Posed: 02/10/2006)

Wednesday, February 03, 2006

Apparently after the entire county (and some of P.G., AACo, and BaltoCo) realized that my website doesn't actually bash paid guys or P.G. County, I've been getting requests from everyone to be mentioned on here. There are three worth mentioning, not because they all came up to me within a 16 hour block and told me to mention their names on the website, but because I haven't posted anything in a month (except for my flight school blog) and I've run out of things to write about...

Read the whole story and see the photos.
(Posted: 02/03/2006)

Saturday, December 17, 2005 - Friday, December 23, 2005

For the fifth year in a row, I participated in the Santa Detail at SVFC, and like most other years, I was conned into playing Santa. How sacrilegious is that? I was Santa for Saturday, Tuesday, and Friday nights, and my brother was Santa for Monday and Wednesday nights. I was the skinniest, shortest, most Jewish Santa you would ever meet. For your entertainment, I have provided photos.

Read the whole story and see the photos.
(Posted: 12/25/2005)

Wednesday, October 05, 2005

...Pause for a second and try to imagine a one-armed (with a backwards hand) drunk man trying to urinate in a bottle. It's rather entertaining. Sir Everclear managed to get most of the urine in the bottle, but he couldn't resist urinating all over our cot, the floor, and his own baseball cap. When we pulled back the curtain, Beer Guy was sitting back on our cot, wearing a baseball cap that was soaked in urine.

"Sir, do you know you're wearing a baseball cap soaked in urine?" I asked.

"No I'm not," he said.

"Are you sure, sir, because to me, it looks and smells like it's soaked in urine." I responded.

"Shut up boy!" he yelled at me...

Read the whole story and see the photos.
(Posted: 10/11/2005)

Sunday, October 02, 2005

On Sunday I participated in the Howard County Fire Expo for the fourth year (not consecutive). For those of you who don't know, the expo is a public demonstration for the citizens of Howard County where the fire and police department perform demonstrations like car fires, vehicle extrication, drug/bomb/attack dogs, and other public safety activities. Savage is always fortunate enough to do the car fire, and every year I look forward to it.

Read the whole story, see the photo slide show, and watch the video footage.
(Posted: 10/11/2005)

Tuesday, August 09, 2005

Today I had the opportunity to do a ride-along with the MD State Police. It wasn't a normal ride along, in the back of a police car, but a helicopter ride along, on Trooper 8 out of the Norbeck Base.

Read the whole story and see the photo slide show.
(Posted: 08/09/2005)

Sunday, August 07, 2005

Today was the Sunday In The Country festival at Merriweather Post Pavilion. What is Sunday In The Country? you ask. It is a country music concert. But that's not the best part. The best part is that there were 20 thousand people attending and at least 12 thousand were hot, attractive, young, blonde women who wore halter tops, short shorts, and carried a blood-alcohol concentration of no less than 0.08.

Read the whole story and see the photo slide show.
(Posted: 08/08/2005)

Sunday, May 08, 2005

Having spent the entire weekend in my bedroom because of the wisdom teeth extraction, I was going threw firehouse withdraw. Firehouse withdraw is similar to alcohol withdraw, with the twitching, and the sleepless nights, except that it occurs after prolonged periods of being away from the firehouse.

Read the whole story and see the photos.
(Posted: 06/20/2005)

Saturday, April 23, 2005

Today A-66 participated in a BWI mass casualty drill wherein we simulated an airplane emergency landing with multiple patients. Lt. Parsley and I took the ambulance to the detail and treated many patients. We transported one patient to the facility.

Read the whole story and see the photos.
(Posted: 06/13/2005)

Saturday, April 15, 2005

Merriweather Post Pavilion opened for the first concert this season, and for the first time ever, I actually sat though the concert. I didn't stand outside the gate, I didn't try to sneak backstage, I didn't hull drunken teenagers to the hospital. Diana and Kristin both bought tickets, which was kind of my incentive to go sit on the lawn.

Read the whole story and see the photos.
(Posted: 06/09/2005)

Tuesday, March 01, 2005

Last night was a slow night at the firehouse. Julie and I stayed up until about 02:00 doing homework. At 03:30, we were woken for a call for trouble breathing. I was still comatose while I was driving the ambulance to the call. We went into the bedroom to find an elderly woman complaining of foot pain. "What seems to be the problem today?" I asked. "My foot hurts," she answered. "Are you having any trouble breathing?" "No." At this point, I wanted to get a refusal. Then the paramedic chimed in, "I think you should go to the hospital."

Read the whole story and listen to the audio footage.
(Posted 03/01/2005)