Who is going to rescue you?
...know and support your local emergency services as you can...
No travel happening this month, so another local story. (When we are wandering it is usually simple to find something to share. When we are home, I have to wait for something to appear.)
For Mothers Day, one of our local towns, Windsor, was hosting a pancake breakfast and safety fair to raise money for the Sonoma County Fire District. We went by early, as you would expect of us. All the local government and volunteer services in the north county were represented and the breakfast was fine. Keiser Park in Windsor is beautiful and has some wondrous trees.
You were able to learn about volunteer emergency radio services (Jim’s on this crew), honor flights for veterans, all the fire services, ambulance services, and more.
Side note: As you know, we live in prime California fire country and are acutely attuned to our fire services teams: Sonoma County Fire District, Northern Sonoma County Fire (formerly Geyserville Fire), Cal Fire, Healdsburg Fire, etc. And we live within a mile of both Cal Fire and a brand new Healdsburg Fire Station. Our location is not particularly fire prone, but we are surrounded by lethally vulnerable grass and forested hills full of friends, neighbors, and their businesses. We drove through homes on Fitch Mountain this week and I was appalled by how vulnerable those homes are—beautifully nested in a robust oak forest, but scary.
Jim stopped to remark to the Bell’s Ambulance representative that, with the rig door open, you couldn’t see who they were as it covered up their signage. Laughter. The door was shifted and we started a chat. Bell’s Ambulance has been a fixture in the north county since 1956, a very long time. Jim mentioned the time they picked him up at our home during his heart attack and he recognized a young man working that morning who went to school with our son. He found that comforting. We received the report that the young man was now doing EMT helicopter work in the east bay, continuing his service. I remarked about the time I tried to get put into a Bell’s Ambulance, only to be refused and helicoptered into Memorial Hospital. I mentioned that it was Rocky, the on-board paramedic, that came down to rescue me and did the refusing. And so, we received a report on Rocky and her husband and her son, still working for Bell’s. A local, family-owned service like Bell’s touches everyone’s family at some point. It is wonderful that they have such a long bond to our communities.
A few of you know this story, but it’s a strange one—how Rocky came to refuse me an ambulance ride.
Jim and I were hiking one day in the early nineties in the scrubby, third-growth forest east of Lake Sonoma off of Rockpile Road. (How we came to be there is another story.) The country between Geyserville and Annapolis near the coast is terribly rugged, mostly vertical and it was a bushwack-scramble of a “hike”, not any kind of a trail. As we were trying to cut uphill to Rockpile for a shortcut back to the car, we came across a very large grow site hidden under the trees and decided to cut around it taking a less direct route. We came to a ravine that we needed to cross and I, being rather tired and stupid at that moment, thought I could “scoot” down the wall of the ravine. This was not the case. There was a moment in which I realized that was not going to work and that grabbing a small tree was not going to stop my sliding.** A flip, and then I don’t remember the next bit.
Jim had to watch, for which I am ever so sorry, and then figure a better way down to where I landed. After sitting with me until he realized that I was mostly okay and he believed I was “coherent” enough to sit still, he went for help, which entailed hiking back out of the ravine to the car and driving until he could get cell service to make the call to 911. Meanwhile I sat quietly in the running creek bed into which I had tumbled and pondered what was going on. The Geyserville Fire crew were the first to arrive, scrambling like some crazy kids down the other side of the ravine to get to me. They called in the helicopter, Henry 1, with Rocky on board. More than two hours after the fall, I was pretty conscious and relatively coherent, so I got to “watch” the whole getting-rescued thing. (Though I remember being unable to answer most questions asked of me.) I could listen to the radio chatter as the young fire crew (the scramblers were very young) directed the helicopter to our location deep in the forested ravine.
The helicopter crew executed a “long line” rescue, flying a basket on a line far below the helicopter and lowering it down to our location, Rocky standing on the basket as it flew in above us. She then proceeded to evaluate my condition and get me strapped in tight to the basket so that I could not turn my head. This was too sorrowful as the experience of floating up through the douglas fir and redwoods was quite spectacular, but I couldn’t turn my head to look. Then, still swinging from the helicopter by the “long line”, they proceeded to take us an open spot where they could land the basket and then the helicopter, Rocky still standing aloft on the basket. It was at this point that I argued for a simple trip in the Bell’s Ambulance, which was standing by, to Healdsburg hospital. But to no avail. Seems there is a rule that declares that if you fall further than 20 feet, they MUST deliver you to the appropriate hospital—Memorial in this case. Rocky’s estimations vastly exceeded 20 feet. So my chance to ride in a Bell’s Ambulance was foiled.
Of course, there is more to this story, but this is more than enough for now. Needless to say I recovered, though it took awhile.
We are ever grateful our “Geyserville” fire department, Bell’s Ambulance, and Sonoma County Sheriff helicopter unit Henry 1. We are all blessed by all the teams that come out to save us from the world and ourselves.
Be well. Be safe. Do not require rescuing if you can manage it.
M&J
** This is why we all have to remember to be careful and that the difference between carrying-on and catastrophe is often quite small and momentary.