It was a typical Thursday evening. I had just gotten home from my after-school program run and was just putting my feet up and getting ready to eat dinner (thank you microwave dinners deluxe)when a phone call interrupted my, one time a week, quiet evening at home.
"Ms. Bus Driver, its an emergency, can you help?"
Amazing how one phone call can cause so much havoc in one evening. Not really knowing what I was about to get myself into, I immediately said, "Yes, what do you need me to do?"
"Go to Transit, get a bus with a lift, and go out to Nearby Town, and help evacuate the nursing home. There is a fire. Make sure you call Mr. Bossman when you get to Transit."
By the word "fire", the adrenaline was pumping, and I had already put my shoes on and was on the way down the stairs. The call came in at 6:51 pm. I was at Transit and on a bus by 6:54 pm. I was entering Nearby Town following the ambulances with lights and sirens by 7:07 pm. By 7:09, I was at the nursing home.
The smoke was thick. It felt like a hot August night and the road was blocked off. The fire reached within 30 feet of the nursing home. We were against a wall of smoke racing against time to get the residents to safety. It was chaos. Organized chaos, but chaos.
Police were redirecting traffic, roads were closed, trains were stopped. The fire had jumped the 4 lane highway in several places. The county had come to a standstill. Reports flew in, 1000 acres burned, then 2000, then 5000, then 7000+. Damage is unknown.
Speculation begins: Was it a careless brush fire, Was it someone burning trash, Was it a controlled burn out of control?
WHOP WHOP WHOP WHOP WHOP The helicopter soars overhead dropping water on hot spots where the trucks can't reach. Homes are in danger, some already burning.
People are being evacuated to nearby churches, schools, towns. Fire departments from all over are battling the blaze. Emotions are running high and the intensity is heart pounding.
School buses, Transit buses, and Ambulances are piled into the parking lot at the nursing home. I load up two people in wheelchairs, secure them and go to make my way over to the safety shelter.
I return again in the hopes of helping to transport supplies, or other needed items or other people who needed transport.
I think it takes about 40-50 minutes to evacuate everyone. Ambulances are making several return trips for bed bound residents. Over at the evacuation shelter, people are swarming, nurses are working to make sure everyone is safe and the smell of smoke hangs in the air. The nursing home becomes a ghost town.
Did I just help evacuate a nursing home?
Wow.
The Bus Driver
<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<< >>>>>>>>>>>
Thanks to Ms. Bus Driver for allowing us to repost her experience.
With her permission came this observation:
It was quite intense. My adrenaline was definitely pumping and it was fantastic to work alongside medical and firefighting personnel and assisting them in whatever they needed!
Check out her blog site:
Mike "FossilMedic" Ward
What’s In A Name?
1 comment"Faggot!"
Last Tuesday night, April 12, Kobe Bryant, the star LA Lakers player, lashed out at an NBA official during a game with the San Antonio Spurs, referring to him as a “faggot.”
Caught on video Bryant had no option but to engage in a contorted mea culpa:
"My actions were out of frustration during the heat of the game, period," he said. "The words expressed do NOT reflect my feelings towards the gay and lesbian communities and were NOT meant to offend anyone."
Hmmm. Let’s try this: Suppose it was the NBA official who, “out of frustration during the heat of the game”, referred to Bryant using the N-word. Now, read Bryant’s statement substituting “African-American community” for “gay and lesbian communities”, as if it were instead spoken by the NBA official after his N-word slip and see if it flies. It obviously doesn’t.
The NBA official would have been fired in a micro-second and would have been the subject of public humiliation and contempt. Kobe Bryant trots out a truly absurd explanation and all is well, apparently.
So, does Bryant revere gays and lesbians, in fact, does he hold them in the highest esteem yet blurts out an anti-gay slur when he is deeply frustrated and angry?
Some pundits are explaining the event by saying that sports is the last bastion where homophobic slurs can be employed, an absurd assertion. What is true is that gays and lesbians are surely among the last groups that can be the subject of vicious slurs in any number of settings with little or no negative reaction or substantive sanction.
Is Bryant’s use of the term a surrogate for other words like weak, submissive, or sissy, as it often is? If so, it’s an invitation for the many idiots among us who look to people such as Bryant for cues for how they should behave. It helps to normalize aggressive behavior, including physical assaults, that qualify as hate crimes or worse. After all, actions start with attitudes.
But Bryant is not the only one at fault—the pathetic game announcers laugh their way through Bryant’s tantrum as if it was a belch at a bar. They too, are culpable for their cowardly response treating an anti-gay slur as if it were common profanity.
How serious is Bryant’s apology? Not very, it seems. He will appeal the NBA levied fine citing “standard protocol” as the reason. Restoring his public character is apparently worth something less than $100K, for him the equivalent of a Regular Joe buying a lotto ticket.
Real men take the punishment they have coming and redeem themselves accordingly.
http://www.tmz.com/2011/04/13/kobe-bryant-homophic-slur-during-nba-game/
* * * * * * *