June 18, 2019
At 7 in the morning, just as Kanan woke up to get the day started with a workout since she had an off-day from college, the pager rang once more. As the firehouse siren roared to life, she raced out of her house and ran out to the street. As the sun rose in the sky, she raced to the firehouse as she saw another firefighter jump into his car and speed down to the same place past her.
Within two and a half minutes, she ran into the firehouse and quickly began to put on her gear. As she pulled her bunker pants up, You and Chika also both ran in. Chika's gear, as she was an auxiliary firefighter for the time being, consisted of two silver pull-up wader boots and a long coat, plus a helmet with green stripes. Chika said to Kanan as she got dressed, "I bet Ruby-chan's kicking herself right now over missing this."
"I bet," she replied as she raced to Rescue 151 with You. The call was for a car accident with Station 153 along the road next to the coastline, and from the description of the call over the pager, it did not sound good. Chika ran to the Ambulance, hopping in the back as an older auxiliary volunteer hopped in the driver's seat, with a paid firefighter up front. The other paid firefighter was driving the rescue, and a volunteer lieutenant was up front.
The lieutenant radioed, "Rescue 151 to Fire Alarm, can you tone out Station 63 for another ambulance to the scene?"
"10-4, we'll get them going."
"Thank you," he replied. "Rescue 151 is responding with a crew of 5, 1 medic, 2 EMTs." As they rolled out, Kanan grabbed her extrication gloves from her bunker pants and began to put them on, prompting You to do the same. The lieutenant turned around and said to the crew, "Okay, I want Kanan-kun to grab the spreaders, You-kun to grab the cutters, and Hiro-kun to start pulling out cribbing. I'll grab miscellaneous tools, and once we get the hydraulic motor started, I'll have Kiyoshi-san jump in as the medic in the car. We'll have Engine 153's crew either in the car if they got an EMT or pulling a line for fire suppression, and that new girl that was the third person on the ambulance will back any of us up during the extrication. Get her some experience on a tool."
Kanan gave a thumbs-up, replying back, "You got it, Lieutenant!"
Upon Rescue 151's arrival, they came up to a single car that had hit the guard rail between the road and the sea. The front end was completely crumpled, the glass was already smashed in most windows, and the driver looked to be unresponsive. As Kanan and You pulled out their respective tools, they both looked at the car with unease as a crowd gathered to watch. They then laid the cutters and spreaders out on the road as a volunteer began putting cribbing underneath the car to stabilize it. You ran up to him and said, "Hiro-kun, let me give you a hand with that!"
"Sure," he replied as he handed her two pieces of cribbing. "Go take care of the other side for me."
As You walked around the other side, she saw blood from the driver spattered all over the dashboard of the car. She paid no attention to it as she did her duty. Meanwhile, Chika and Kanan were both carrying the spreaders to the driver side door, ready to start moving in once the signal was given. The bluenette told her, "Chika-chan, if at any point you wanna tap out, give me a signal and I'll get You-chan or someone else to do it."
"I won't," she assured her.
Then, a firefighter gave her the signal. "Cribbing's ready!"
"Using Spreaders!" Chika then opened up on the spreaders, spreading open the car door. As the sound of crunching metal emanated through the scene, the door began to pop open. Once the door was opened wide enough, You wrapped a rope around it and pulled on it. Chika said to Kanan, "Time to get the cutters, right?"
"Yep," Kanan said as Chika put the spreaders down on a tarp nearby and picked the cutters up. Chika lodged the cutters into the mechanism that held the door to the body.
"Using Cutters!" The cutters began to tear through the mechanism as You kept her grip on the rope steady. It did not take long before the door itself fell of the hinges and onto the ground with a loud metallic bang. Chika set the cutters down on the tarp nearby as Kanan and You both went into the car and undid the seat belt on the driver as two more firefighters brought a stretcher over. The blood from the driver smeared onto their turnout coats as You grabbed a c-collar from an opened medical bag on the stretcher and applied it to the driver's neck.
Kanan said to You as she grabbed the orange backboard from the stretcher, "Ready to lift?"
"Yep," she replied as she carefully placed the driver's body on the backboard and adjusted it. She told the paramedic from the crew of two that brought the stretcher, "I can feel the driver breathing, but he's still out of it and bleeding pretty bad." She and Kanan then slid the backboard onto the stretcher.
Chika watched in curiosity as the paramedic firefighter began pulling an IV and some medicines from the medical bag to administer to the patient. She then looked over at Kanan and You and saw that their gear was stained in blood. "Need to get rinsed off?"
"Yeah," Kanan replied. "The rinsing hose is on Pumper 153 along with a bodily fluids basin on Rescue 151." The guidelines for washing turnout gear normally called for a rinsing on scene and then a wash back at the station. However, if gear got blood or other bodily fluids on it, it had to be rinsed with the firefighter(s) standing in a basin so the water could not run off, then taken off on scene, bagged, and then washed at the station, with the water from the rinsing being dumped into the sewer system.
Later in the day, You's cousin Tsuki stopped by at Station 151. A volunteer at Station 61 up to the north since 2018, she enjoyed a close relationship with her cousin. She had been interested in making a career out of firefighting, which would make her the first paid firefighter in the Watanabe family, and was enrolled in a college paramedic degree. As she and You studied together upstairs with a paid firefighter-paramedic, she mentioned to You, "You'll never guess who I ran into, You-chan."
"Who?" You was curious as she looked up from her textbook.
"Hachiro," Tsuki replied as she mentioned the name of You's ex-boyfriend from her first year of high school. "He was back in the area visiting family. He asked about you and wondered how you were doing."
You looked out a window, the hot sun beating down on her blue NCFD t-shirt as she sighed. "You know, looking back, it feels like we did kinda move too quickly."
"I was gonna say," Tsuki replied, noting how fast-paced their relationship was. "You guys were together like 8 months, and in that time you banged him in 6 of those months, right?"
"Yeah," You replied, blushing slightly. "I don't regret it, though. I do sometimes wish I could use some of the things I learned in bed again." The two then laughed. "In other news, did you hear they're finally going to be doing some expansion of the paramedic scope?"
"About God damn time," Tsuki groaned. "Why can't we administer more drugs like the firefighters in America? It's bullshit that we're restricted to only a few drugs unless we want to consult Medical Control every time we go on an EMS call." She was frustrated with the lack of skills Japanese paramedics were allowed to do without approval from a doctor compared to North America and Europe.
"Tell me about it," You replied in agreement. "Speaking of that, hopefully I'll be able to enroll in the next EMT class starting in September. Right now, we're enrolling Ruby-chan and Chika-chan in the summer boot camp for Auxiliary and Interior Volunteer Firefighter. I got an Advanced Volunteer Firefighter class tonight, actually." She then began filling out some paperwork.
"What's that?"
"More training stuff," You replied. "I'm basically gonna go all-out this year. I'm signing up for a couple PADI courses with Kanan-chan's family dive shop. My hope is that when 2020 rolls around, I can get on the Dive Rescue Team."
"That would be nice," Tsuki noted. "Unfortunately, we don't got any of that special stuff in District 6. Station 61 is just a normal firehouse."
June 20, 2019
You and Kanan watched firefighters from downtown Numazu fight a rather large fire at a warehouse across the street from their college during a break. As they continued to watch, You mentioned to Kanan as they saw two firefighters begin to set up a deck gun on the ground, "I bet my dad's here somewhere."
Sure enough, the man himself stepped forward from a crowd of firefighters and noticed her. "Huh? You! Over here!" He then waved her over. "Bring Kanan-kun, too!"
You waved to her father as she and Kanan walked over, stepping over several supply lines before she hugged her father. "Dad, how's it going?" She then brushed some soot off of her clothes.
"It was tiring, I'll tell you that," he replied as he wiped sweat off of his forehead. "I just came out of the warehouse about 5 minutes ago." He then pointed to the top of the warehouse as an aerial ladder truck began to set up a master stream operation. "We cut some holes in the roof for ventilation, but now we're gonna have to spray down into them since the fire's venting real good out of the holes." The scene around them was loud but not as chaotic as one would think. By now, firefighters had mostly switched to fighting the fire from the outside. "It was fucking hot in there, You."
"I can imagine," she replied as she looked around the building. "Are there even any windows on the building?"
"Only a few in the rear and on the first floor for the offices," her father replied. "I was only in there about 15 minutes before they pulled the plug on us."
