Jest Out of Jurisdiction
Law Enforcement / First Responder stories and experiences with a focus on comedic blunders, events, and the lighter side of stressful jobs. Stories are firsthand accounts told by the hosts Flash and T-Dot with accompanying guest interviews.
Jest Out of Jurisdiction
Lot lizards, Funnel Clouds, and Foundation Saves
In this exhilarating episode, we bring you behind the scenes of first responder life as firefighters and police officers share their best stories filled with humor, heart, and a sprinkle of chaos. From the unexpected twists during seemingly ordinary calls to the camaraderie that develops in the heat of the moment, listeners get an authentic glimpse into what it means to serve and protect the community.
Blue lights from the dead of the night, lying on a run of dim street light, laughing through the written reports. Truth stranger than the wildest courts, tales from the force gone astray, caught up in the games they play. High speed chases gone awry.
Speaker 2:Serious turns into pie in the sky, just out of jurisdiction when I'm pond, I was like, and he wasn't even really like an mp or nothing, he was like a security, yeah, like. And I was like what are you doing here? So this guy from Illinois, he was a real nerdy dude and he comes in in Class A. You know, first day he was like Class A, Well, he's wearing like an outer vest. You know, like Dan Bopitti's got the outer vest stuff. But he was like you don't have to wear a Class A today, man. He said it's in our contract If we wear a uniform, we have to wear this outer vest. I said you think we're going to rat on you? He said, well, they take pictures. We didn't know. I was like our union. I was like, yeah, I get it, man, but you're in BFE Kentucky man.
Speaker 4:Just don't sign that photograph. They didn't have cameras on their hands. They didn't have it in their hand in Camelsville at that point.
Speaker 2:Not back then. That was the sick Danny Robinson. I told that story on there. He got me sick as a dog though, Pooping and puking at the same time, but still the hardest. You're cramming teaching principles in two weeks.
Speaker 3:It's a four-year teaching degree in two weeks.
Speaker 2:Yeah, speaking didn't bother me in two weeks. It's a four-year teaching degree in two weeks. Yeah, and speaking Speaking didn't bother me, it was just the lesson plans and the up all night.
Speaker 3:My cousin. She was just finishing up college to be a teacher.
Speaker 1:I'm like how come I teach a degree in two weeks?
Speaker 3:Why'd you go to that four-year plan Two weeks? You know that's the way you go my first DARE school.
Speaker 2:I had sublimity and I did Cornerstone and my daughter was in there. So I didn't read, I didn't read, I couldn't do it. So we started me and Josh Gaylor and his boy. We started playing music. So we would do like and Lisa would sing and all we'd do is get up there and we'd go to Corinth and that's where they did their graduation, over there. So we had the DARE band we called ourselves. I was trying to I mean, they probably don't remember it, but it was the Uncivil Servants- yes, they didn't teach me how to handle this in 5th grade.
Speaker 2:You get all kinds of crazy the dare box.
Speaker 3:It's horrible. We made raid after raid out of the dare box my dad sells cocaine it's amazing what are his prices?
Speaker 2:bless their hearts. But there at the end I mean it was just like alright, you know, as as the schools got more into like testing and stuff, they pushed me like 45 minutes. And then it's the two classes, like can we combine these classes? I'm out, I just can't. It doesn't work, it's not effective. If you don't it's not bad for the masses, yeah and 30 kids is a lot, yes, anyway, but then you have 60 and you're like I just can't.
Speaker 3:They don't get to participate the way it's intended no so it's the old DARE school.
Speaker 2:I've heard one of the funniest things I've ever seen it. We went. We went to dare conference later in Bowling Green. Oh my gosh, here's the head of dare out there mooning us on the golf course. Well, we probably there's.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:We probably.
Speaker 3:There's consequences, you know.
Speaker 2:That was lesson three consequences. So don't go to the restroom while you're at a DARE conference either. You'll come back and you'll be the regional go-to guy signing all the paperwork. Oh, by the way, congratulations. I sat down and DARE couched like congrats man. I was like what he's like. You're the region guy down here on the Derek board. I still get stuff from DARE America. I'm not taught DARE in five, six years I should have went to all them big conventions out there.
Speaker 2:It's funny, all right. Intro is broke you ready. That's fine, alright. Intro is broke you ready.
Speaker 1:I got you again.
Speaker 5:Alright, guys, we're back with you with another episode. We have finally, finally, got some firefighters in here. We've had a lot of wannabe firefighters, but now we've actually got some real ones in here so they can tell their story. Heroes. Indeed, you want to introduce them.
Speaker 1:Go ahead.
Speaker 5:You've heard a lot about Fuzz. He's finally with us after T-Dot figured out that he was calling the wrong number.
Speaker 2:It wasn't the wrong number. He has taken me out of his context.
Speaker 5:He ghosted you.
Speaker 2:He ghosted me or blocked me and then got up with me on Facebook and finally was like you've got to text me because if you call, it's blocking because I weed all those people out.
Speaker 3:I started my car warranty being renewed.
Speaker 5:We've got Dylan Turner here with us. Both combined have I don't know.
Speaker 2:7,000 years and one year of experience, though.
Speaker 5:Yes.
Speaker 2:Of knowledge.
Speaker 5:Fuzz has done them both. He's been law enforcement and fire and he finally fulfilled his dreams All police officers have to finally become a firefighter. Dylan was the smart one and stayed away from police Exactly.
Speaker 2:Fun stuff. So they're both. They both work y'all on the same shift now.
Speaker 3:Yeah, station 2. Station 2. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Big city of Danville. Yeah, my place. I wish I was still at. Yes, cry every day. It's a good employer it's a good they are. They really are. We talked about this last. You know, last week probably what I, when I think about how I would have liked to set London up when I was chief. It would have been like Tony and them have set it up there as far as the police department and the way they do it they have city managers which works a whole lot better.
Speaker 2:It's very efficient and really enjoyed my short stay up there and hey you never know, you never know, I may be a firefighter up there the water's fine you can go up there and be daniel's errand I've always listen my problem is I just want to go out and check fire hydrants, like I said, last time we saw each other.
Speaker 5:You can't pee on them. I could, I pee everywhere.
Speaker 2:I'll get up here and walk out midway and go again. I think I don't know how I survived this last one. It was a three hour podcast and I didn't get up when we were finished. My, my eyeballs were flooded. I was like I got to go. We'll start with you, dylan. How many years?
Speaker 4:Oh gosh, I started as a volunteer in a little community in southern Hardin County January 5th of 1997. So I started then, Then kind of bounced around the volunteer world and then finally got my little break working at Pleasure Ridge Park Fire Department, part-time Worked there for a while and then I met a beautiful woman at Thunder Over Louisville and she said you know, we should get married and you should move to London, Kentucky. And I was like there's a town there, Because the only thing I knew of London was when you went to Gatlinburg you hung a right by the dog patch and you just went on. I didn't know there was a town or anything, I just thought it was a few gas stations.
Speaker 5:You're not wrong, no, no.
Speaker 4:I wasn't wrong stations.
Speaker 2:That's it, you're not wrong. No, no, I wasn't wrong. So, uh, and then you were introduced to the chicken festival. Yeah, I went to the chicken festival one time and I looked around, I was like you know, my life is not that bad so uh, yeah, and I haven't been back since, and that was 13 years ago.
Speaker 4:Uh, then I got, uh, I came over here and I started on the London City Fire Department and got part-time in 2012. Yeah, 2012. I got hired in 2015. Worked until 2021.
Speaker 1:Is that when it was? Yeah?
Speaker 4:It's all together now.
Speaker 2:London they didn't have a paid fire department for. I mean, it's been the last. What 10 years or so About that you?
Speaker 4:know you had the daytime guys with larry and tony and carl and donnie and I can't remember the guys before that. I know their faces but I can't remember their names. They always had a daytime.
Speaker 3:Donnie links he was the original yeah, 40 hour week.
Speaker 2:Yeah, friday they were, did mostly admin right.
Speaker 4:Yeah, mostly yeah, yeah, it's truck maintenance yeah yeah, it's on maintenance yeah, it's on the buildings and then, just you know, decided, saw a little writing on the wall and decided to go to danville in 2021, danville's the smart man danville's a great like we've said are you?
Speaker 3:it's just an hour drive, it's just and it's an easy hour yeah that's not a bad commute.
Speaker 2:No, it's an easy hour. It's so easy that you find yourself sleeping across a dam.
Speaker 4:Oh yeah autopilot works great.
Speaker 2:I didn't want to if I was driving my wife's car up there. It's got the lane assist stuff to keep me in there you have to drive them by Braille the rumble strips come in handy, yeah.
Speaker 2:How do I have any cars? You know that little strip, that's the only part that's tough because it's four lane. You know it's interstate. And then getting to, I guess, stanford, then it turns back into four lane, but there's two lanes. It's straight as an arrow. Then it turns back into four lane, but there's two. It's two lanes, straight as an arrow. But that but it when we was getting over there, when I had to get over there by 7, 30 ish, traffic was yeah and it would get slow and yeah, you're like, I got to pass and the best part, the best place to pass was right on top of that dam oh yeah, like you.
Speaker 3:Great visibility. That's a really good place. Past the church on the left. That's one of the prettiest places. It's postcard perfect.
Speaker 2:I used to pull off. If I had time, I'd pull up there and just look at it. It's actually prettier from the road, though it's pretty up there, but it's just like it's gorgeous there.
Speaker 5:Here's heaven right here, that part of the state.
Speaker 3:Stanford and all that. That is Lincoln County right there yeah.
Speaker 4:Lakes and Lincoln. You know we were going up there for a class one day, cold, cold days, and that lake had ice on it and it had a big chunk of ice probably the size of this room and right sitting on top of that chunk of ice was a bald eagle and I mean I was like I'm late for class, but you know I'll start crying.
Speaker 3:If there was a rainbow in the background, I'd be emotional right now.
Speaker 4:I can't handle it. What's great about coming home is once in a blue moon you find John Wright coming home, so you just get on his bumper and just follow him. Yeah, just ride it.
Speaker 2:He just doesn't know.
Speaker 4:You're back no, he ain't got a clue. He ain't got a clue, yeah, yeah that's awesome.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's a. It is a good drive, a pretty drive, straight drive. So the worst part to me we would drive to mount burningham park and switch over there, sit there in the wintertime waiting on your car to defrost. You're like, uh, what a waste. But other than that, easy drive. So so y'all drive there. You still live here in london yeah, drive up yeah, 24 on 48 off.
Speaker 5:That's right big. That's a pretty good schedule, not bad.
Speaker 2:Yeah, how many calls y'all have, like I mean, I mean, it's a bigger city.
Speaker 3:3 000 runs a year roughly.
Speaker 4:We're doing more nicholasville, we're doing more than richmond comparison wise.
Speaker 5:I mean, I don't know, I know what our cad numbers were, but as far as like london was.
Speaker 4:So I think, when I left london we were doing about 800 calls, but now they've kind of changed some of the ways they operate, so I think they're pretty close to probably being on the pace of over 2 000 this year. I mean it's yeah you can't get any sleep like that no, no, you can't, you couldn't in the next
Speaker 1:time. That's right, so you gotta catch it how many stations are up there?
Speaker 4:I know two right now. I think they're going to talk this summer about building Station 3.
Speaker 1:And that's kind of what brought.
Speaker 4:I mean, I can speak for myself, I can't speak for Fuzz. That's what kind of drew me into that area where they realized that they needed to take some steps. So the city did a study on pay and how many stations and everything like that. So I think we need what? Three more stations, two more stations they're saying four for the population yeah, for the total.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah for adequate response times and things.
Speaker 2:Yeah now, when I first went over there had no idea that danville is probably twice the size city population of London. Yeah, and I was shocked at that. Well, I think it's maybe 10,000 more.
Speaker 3:Even when the college is in, it's really up there.
Speaker 2:You know, the main street's beautiful with their, you know, but it's not like super long or anything, you can walk it easy. I used to walk from that coffee shop downtown all the way up to campus yeah, uh, to campus on it and at center and it's like 10, 15 minutes yeah yeah, yeah, you're like wow, but it's the surrounding, yeah, um, a lot of. I don't. I don't really consider danville as as a suburb of Lexington because it's got its own little thing.
Speaker 1:It's far enough away.
Speaker 2:It's not like Nicholasville or Winchester or something or Georgetown, so it's kind of got its own thing going. And the cool thing about it, you can be in Lexington in an hour and Louisville in an hour and a half or less. So it's pretty neat where it's at, really in central Kentucky and it's just continuing to grow.
Speaker 4:I mean, there's industry businesses open up constantly.
Speaker 2:It's definitely in a growing phase, so the growth of the fire department. Then what's the time frame of having four stations? Because that's that's a lot, seems like I.
Speaker 3:What's the time frame of having four stations, because that's a lot. I can see the third station in the next couple of years.
Speaker 4:It's got to be going up by Walmart somewhere, or up towards that way it's going over towards the fairgrounds, like over towards the Peddler's Mall and all of that. Yeah, I mean we make a lot of calls but we're definitely understaffed and sometimes that is the hardest thing being understaffed, just not having enough manpower to do the job. And the other thing is when we get a structure fire, used to everybody that worked for Danville pretty much lived in that little area and I think what is there like three or four now? So when you ask for a second alarm you're only getting like four guys. It's a little rough.
Speaker 2:That's the different part of it. I guess y'all's direct competition would probably be what Lexington and Richmond Nicholasville. I mean all these pretty good sized cities that pay pretty good, so getting drawn and our last hire he came from Berea you know, so.
Speaker 3:I mean Berea Fire lost him to us, so it's right.
Speaker 5:So it's kind of you, just kind of I would say, it's right there in that sweet spot, though that keeps everything honest as far as as far as paying everything, you've got enough competition around as far as paying everything.
Speaker 3:You've got enough competition around to where they've got to keep going and that's why they have to do the studies and stuff, to not be a revolving door, a training ground for other departments.
Speaker 4:There's that competition and pretty much nobody can beat Lexington. You're just not going to compete with them. So now what Danville has to do is they have to compete with Nicholasville, they have to compete with Georgetown.
Speaker 1:Richmond.
Speaker 4:I know Wes went over there. It's a competition. But then you have Winchester and all those. It's a constant competition. Last two years ago I saw Nicholasville's pay scale. At that time Danville paid more. Then it came out to Sumber and now they've tried to beat Danville by about $5,000.
Speaker 2:Which is good for you guys.
Speaker 1:Which is good for us. So now back to the drawing board all over again.
Speaker 4:So it's that constant competition with those area departments.
Speaker 2:And like all first responders and you know police and fire, you're not getting the. It's harder to get. I don't know about fire. I know for police side of it. Nobody's just really want to dive in and do that.
Speaker 3:So the application pool is a lot more shallow now than what it used to be. When I applied at Lexington, there were over 1,000 applicants for 30 positions.
Speaker 2:You're not going to believe this, dylan, but I'm pretty sure I may have even thought about applying for Lexington Fire. But at the time I think John Blanton was already there. I saw him at a paint store in town, him and his dad. He talked you out of it. No, he was like you need to do it. I was like, well, it's fire.
Speaker 4:I was kind of scared of that stuff.
Speaker 2:It's hot, it's hot, it's hot. But he told me he's like it was so competitive because they paid really well and they had the days, because they paid really well and they had the days you know, it's the cool stuff and they were like they may only take 30 out of these thousands that are there and then they may. You may not even get to the interview because they may go even in odds to just get narrowed down to something, that rule of fives that they had.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that was it. It was rule of five.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and you're just like I don't know, see me and John.
Speaker 3:we went through the same academy class up there.
Speaker 2:Man, you went to the academy with everybody.
Speaker 3:Yes, I've been trained, and trained, and trained. You made a career of training.
Speaker 2:Oh my gosh, what was the craziest fire that you've ever had to deal with, dylan? Just one that scared you or just freaked you out? Dumpster fire sounds like yes no, I you know after you've done this for so long.
Speaker 4:You sit there and think well, you know that one wasn't bad, but you know I'm trying to remember all these. There's a couple that come to mind back one august saturday, when I was still in elizabethtown a little town there called glendale we had a pallet factory catch on fire yeah, and, and it was just hot and miserable all day long. We had a Jif peanut butter fire.
Speaker 2:I bet that smelled great for a while.
Speaker 4:Yeah, yeah, for a while in Louisville and we got the call where we were like peanut butter doesn't burn, but when you got there it was the oil on top of that. You know, weavers, that definitely wasn't fun. You know, I guess the one that here recently in the last umpteen years was the Reams Lane trailer fire with the kid.
Speaker 5:That was a terrible situation altogether.
Speaker 4:Yeah, that one wasn't fun just because conflicting reports and then everybody in there searching on their hands and knees, face to the rug, kind of trying to find the child, and then in your mind thinking, well, maybe they all got out and then come to find out where the child was. Yeah, those are those are.
Speaker 5:Yeah, that was one of those calls that you know police yeah, that experience that, yes, well, and yes, yeah, just as bad
Speaker 4:and then y'all were talking about Joey Robertson. When we first got hired, larry would make us go up there to that pool and swim in the morning, yeah, and it was like 10 degrees and the county got called out for a structure fire and they called us because they had limited manpower. So we went to the structure fire in swimming trunks drenched in water and every time we would try to take a step to go to that house fire. You body would fill up with ice just a little bit more. And I can't remember how hard it was, because it wasn't that the fire was bad, it was just I had wet swim trunks on and it was 10 degrees and I had no shirt on, no socks, none of that. So you know, you know, I could probably think for hours on on different fires that were difficult.
Speaker 2:Were y'all doing that more as a rescue squad deal the swimming quals? Or was y'all just getting in shape up there Just PT? Cardio training To me. I don't know if I'd have firefighters and water the only water I want them is pointing at something, but I get it it it at something, but I get it it was hard work.
Speaker 4:I think it was a little bit of PT and justifying why the rescue school had a pool up there. That was the other thing but it was.
Speaker 2:That's a good place to go get your swim in multiple agencies got to utilize that. I don't remember the police department getting invited to go swim with yes, yes, I don't remember the police department getting invited to go swim with you guys.
Speaker 3:You weren't missing anything you all don't listen to the lifeguard. That's why you think the rules don't apply.
Speaker 2:So so we have fuzz gold. Go back probably well, the beginning of my career, but I've known you probably a little bit before that. Get in my career, but I've known you probably a little bit before that, and it seems like so. You went to the cat, you went to your the police academy. We'll get all this stuff situated with our, with one of our last guests, of course, josh galo, back in 97 98 98 the next to last 10 week class.
Speaker 3:It was class 268, okay, so did josh that right, or he? Did.
Speaker 1:I was proud of him because he didn't take notes there, and then y'all, so you started at the sheriff's office.
Speaker 2:As far as I mean, there's probably other stuff you did before policing, I'm sure I mean you probably did. By other stuff you did before policing, I'm sure I mean you probably did fire.
Speaker 3:The 1990s is when I got in the volunteer fire service in August of 90. And that January of 91, went to EMT school, started working EMS here locally, worked there for about a year. Rc Walker was willing to give me a job in corrections so I worked corrections for about a year. Rc Walker was willing to give me a job in corrections, so I worked corrections for about a year. And then Gene Holland, in late 94, let me become a transporter and such with the sheriff's department, part-time and from there went into full-time at the SO. Left the SO. Left the SO to go to Lexington Fire. What year did you switch?
Speaker 3:to, so just a couple years so yeah, it was 94 when I went part-time at the SO, went full-time about 95 and went to the academy because that was pre-pops. I mean, the academy wasn't required.
Speaker 3:And so you know, I'd worked the road for several years before I got to go. And then, when it come time to go that was when Spanky was hired on William and he's like, well, he doesn't have any experience, so you're already working the road. He's going to the academy first. When he gets done with the academy he can start working the road so that you can go. And so I went, but next to last class, I mean PT, back in that day. As long as you walked to the track, you got credit for PT. I mean it was strenuous at times.
Speaker 5:I mean that's a lot. He said when he went to the academy PT a lot of the guys were walking around the track doing PT, smoking a cigarette.
Speaker 3:I mean, you didn't even have to walk around the track. You could sit on the bleachers as long as you walked to the track.
Speaker 2:Did you ever do your PT over on the old driving track? There was an old driving track.
Speaker 3:Yeah, because they had the new model city or whatever, with the railroad crossing and everything in there. Yeah, that was the old driving track.
Speaker 2:We'd do some traffic stops out there. Skip pad, yeah, like academy like in-service class would go out there and do like academy, like in service class would go out there and do like practice traffic. You know traffic stops and traffic stops revisited. That's when Danny lit me up. She tried to like shot me in the hand. I was like dude, I was just getting. I was like but I did have them. You know I'm left-handed but I had the simulator, you know the pistol, the seven-dition gun, the seven-dition gun in my right hand.
Speaker 2:So when he saw this hand came out there was no way he saw that he just was going to shoot me. It didn't matter. I was like, golly them little paintballs.
Speaker 5:They hurt.
Speaker 2:That was some of the training, though I learned real quick to wear gloves on that stuff.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's like three years. I was like I had a knot on my. You're crazy.
Speaker 2:You shoot the threat that you see you know I mean that hand was the threat that he saw.
Speaker 5:He was not gonna let me get out there when we went through rapid deployment, burke got the uh the short straw on being the the hostage taker. He spent like four hours getting shot in the back of the head and face it happens.
Speaker 2:So you spent some time on the at the uh sheriff's office laced in fire how long did you start?
Speaker 3:uh, september 11th of 2000, so my one year anniversary was september 11, 2001.
Speaker 2:How's that I mean? Did y'all have to?
Speaker 3:I mean I was off shift that day. I was actually at a class in Hazard over meth lab awareness because meth labs were just becoming cool back then, and so when it all started, class got canceled and we tried to rush back because they were talking about possibly landing regional jets in London because Lexington couldn't hold them all. I mean, they were just putting every plane on the ground so they ended up not landing any in London. Lexington was able to come down, I remember.
Speaker 2:I wasn't policing yet. I was still working for FedEx ground or home delivery at the time. I was in the National Guard. I was listening to the radio when all this was going on. I was listening to Bob and Tom or something when all this was going on. You're hearing all this stuff and the first thing I did I was full of packages. I was in the National Guard. I drove straight to the and I was in the National Guard. I drove straight to the National Guard. I was like we're at war, where do I go? They were like go home. I was like but I'm ready to go.
Speaker 1:And then, when it was time to go, I was like I don't really want to go.
Speaker 3:It's that frontline attitude right, I was ready.
Speaker 2:But then I was like yeah, this might not be the rest.
Speaker 5:This will make you feel young.
Speaker 3:I was in sixth grade so, yeah, I worked lexton fire then up until 03, and when I left lexton fire I went to bluegrass Airport as a public safety officer for a $10,000 a year pay raise, because that was before the union had their bargaining rights and stuff in Lexington. Worked there until 05. I had an opportunity to get hired with KVE here in London, Took that job and worked KB until KSP absorbed us, merged, took us over whatever Hostile takeover, hostile takeover.
Speaker 4:I would say that's probably a hostile takeover.
Speaker 2:You don't have to say it, I'll say it. It was some hurt feelings. I'll take over that, you remember I was working interdiction a lot with you guys down there at the scales. I came very close. Uh, that captain almost had me convinced just to come on board, which would have been a great job at the time and may still be.
Speaker 2:It was the best law enforcement job that I've ever had, I mean it could have been and, uh, because I was down there working interdiction and we just sat there and then all the you know the inspectors would pull over a truck and I'd be like I may go out there and look at that, but I'm not allowed to get in.
Speaker 3:Oh, I am yeah that constitution Don't matter when it's commercial vids. That's exactly right.
Speaker 2:We hung out down there more than how the interdiction team sit on the side, oh yeah. The place to go was scale Because we were looking for team sit on the side of the place to go with scale, because we were looking for not going to get run over over there. That was thousands of pounds. What we's looking for because, because somebody gets something out in western kentucky, you're like it's an every big truck going by, there's a thousand pounds of you go to that snow place, oh my god I've let the cartel survive for
Speaker 2:years did you go to some of them? Oh yeah, they were good classes. Get your hopes up, joe. David, that owner Out in the land of milk and honey On I-15 or whatever, there wasn't nothing going by but dope out of Tijuana, that's right. It's like shooting fish. We thought that was what was going to be on I-75. It's everywhere in every truck going by.
Speaker 3:So then, 2016, I started work with the fire commission as area coordinator up in hazard. Did you write all this down? Oh, it's burning's burned in there, I'm telling you I can remember the history good.
Speaker 5:I just can't remember what I'm supposed to do tomorrow. Long-term memory. Short-term memory.
Speaker 2:Oh my gosh, how long did you work there.
Speaker 3:Until 21, and that's when I went to Danville.
Speaker 2:Man, do you remember when me and Doug went by you in that car chase? Oh yeah, I swear, you threw your papers everywhere. That's what I'm telling you may have given back to that guy.
Speaker 3:I told that driver. I said this is your lucky day, brother. Here's your paperwork. And I threw it at him and I jumped in the vehicle to join in the pursuit Because I was not going to let the pursuit pass me.
Speaker 2:What we didn't tell in that story. I did say we were at a pipeline. You know a lot of firefighters there. There was a lot of firefighters in that car chase. I just want to dime them out. Anybody been?
Speaker 5:to Exxon. Could have been Dylan.
Speaker 2:I don't know, but there was like I don't know, should we say something? I think you might have caught back up with us, but it was a wild one for sure. Did you go all the way to where it ended Up in Rock?
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yep, I was trying my best to talk to him. I was like we're good, let's just pull off here. Puffed.
Speaker 3:That was the thing about Greg Howard, the commissioner of vehicle enforcement. He's like if you're chasing them, don't stop until you catch them. That's awesome. And I mean I've chased into Tennessee multi-counties. I mean once the chase was on you run out of gas or you caught them. That was fun.
Speaker 2:It's different, and I'm sure it's different now with them guys. Oh yeah, I mean everything changes.
Speaker 3:Different world of policing, then let's see here when do you want to go?
Speaker 2:you want to go with some some Academy stuff. Where did you go they'll? Where'd you go to? Like fire Academy, does that?
Speaker 1:so I didn't have to go to a fire Academy right yeah, well, yeah.
Speaker 4:I did not, didn't? The fire commission has an academy now it's actually been open. How long, I mean, it's been open?
Speaker 3:Three years, I guess.
Speaker 4:Three years, but before that they had like a week-long class, and when we got hired, troy Rutter, the mayor, wanted us to go out there and spend like a week, which is a great idea, except the day that we left was February 14th of 2015. And on February 14th it was a Sunday day and we had to be there on Monday and we got six or eight inches of snow and damble on across Kentucky that day. So it was me, brandon Wagers, joey Robertson and Austin Hale and we met up at London Fire Department.
Speaker 5:What a crazy, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4:And it was six to eight inches of snow on the ground and we used the Tahoe and I'll never forget Larry said if you wreck it between here and there, just don't even come back. So it's encouraging. Yeah, the four hour trip to Easter Kentucky was an eight hour trip, going 25 miles an hour. We had a candlelight Valentine dinner at Tumbleweed and Bowling Green and we finally yeah, Is that where the National Guard?
Speaker 2:Yeah, same place. Place up there. Yeah, I've been out there.
Speaker 4:Yeah, when you check into the gate, it's right across the road.
Speaker 2:Oh, okay, yeah.
Speaker 1:They got a pretty good chow hall over there, oh yeah.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 2:It wasn't bad. I mean well else to eat. What's that town called? I can't remember.
Speaker 4:We caught whiffertick was what the base was called with with its Western Kentucky.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's like whi tec with yeah, yeah, we went out there, it's got a Hampton Inn there?
Speaker 4:yes, because that's where I would always stay when we go evaluate if sex skills and such but yeah, we went out there for a week and did some classes that I kind of got grandfathered into that I never had to do and then we came back. But when I got started, the fire commission you know Fuzz was a coordinator and kind of under Fuzz you've got little instructors and stuff like that who are part-time employees. There's one here in London and that's who I work for.
Speaker 4:So you go out to all these different volunteer departments or different places and teach classes. And that's how I got certified driving to different departments and stuff like that, just getting my hours that I had to have. So by the time I made it to London I think I needed like one or two other classes to get that career hours where you get that hazardous duty and you know that was my academy.
Speaker 4:It was driving to different departments and stuff like that in the volunteer world, so I never really had to go to an academy. I don't know what academy life is like. I've heard it's fun Academy.
Speaker 5:It wasn't when I made it there.
Speaker 3:See, when I went to the academy, though, I got elected in as one of the co-class leaders Me and Murray. He ended up being a captain with KSP and stuff, but he was with a city department at that time and so me and him were the co-class leaders that oversaw and such, and Greg Howard was over the academy then before he went to KVE. The co-class leaders that oversaw and such. Greg Howard was over the academy then before he went to KVE and he had left Lexington PD to come there, and so the academy life, I mean it was all right.
Speaker 5:I'd been policing for several years when I went, so it kind of you know secondhand nature.
Speaker 3:Yeah, a refresher you know anyway, oh, a jc3 okay so, yeah, this is all the stuff I'd forgot already. Yeah stuff I'm supposed to be. Yeah, you know, and they got the guys from London PD and and me went, and so I mean the sheriff had kind of gave me a pep talk before we left. You know, fuzz, be on your best behavior, and such, and it seemed like they were just drawing complaint week after week, you know, and so they were getting Friday they'd have to go to the PD and visit with Jim Young.
Speaker 3:I'd go they come back. I'd go home About four weeks in. The sheriff tells me to come by the office on Friday. He's like Fuzz.
Speaker 1:I just want to brag on you, I've not had any complaints on you, but yet the city's getting hammered.
Speaker 3:Just better than I did.
Speaker 5:You were a little smarter than him. By the time we got up there, all the fun had been sucked out of it because you guys had been up there and made so many policies. Yeah, my roommate.
Speaker 3:I mean he was top notch, I mean he slept beside the doors. When they'd do the room check he'd crack the door open. So it was true you weren't there, they'd say Reams and Raleigh. He'd say yep, yep and they close the door, you know so they didn't come in.
Speaker 2:Stick pbts in your face, no, he didn't blue falcon you.
Speaker 3:And then you know there was a 10 30 curfew, yeah. So I mean you had your little key cards. I mean they could see when you come in and out. So there was a maintenance card that was available that you could use it to come in and out after 1030, and it looked like the maintenance guy was coming in and out. So you know, there's ways around the key cards. So I hear Allegedly.
Speaker 2:Y'all stayed over there on campus, though.
Speaker 3:We stayed in the dorm on campus.
Speaker 2:Judges pile up and drive across to the academy.
Speaker 3:There'd be a carpool convoy going to the academy.
Speaker 2:then them guys them dang parking enforcement at EKU. Oh yeah, you didn't park in the no parking. They will write you, they'll ticket the official tag. They are jerks.
Speaker 5:They've kind yeah, they'll ticket the official tag yeah, they are jerks.
Speaker 2:They've kind of alleviated that when we got there, we had our own parking lot and everything by then.
Speaker 5:But you had to have them stickers in.
Speaker 2:I don't know, john, check your weapons in like over at the shooting range. Yeah that's it At the armory they had Right. Well, yeah, we were supposed to yeah, if you got there, if you didn't keep them in the trunk of your car that's where you exactly well, one day, when I got, when I got, andy forreston was one checking our firearms. Okay, so yeah, that's a good, he's got I'm going up there, I'm trying to call him. You let him know I've reached out. I'll let him know, because he's ducking me now.
Speaker 3:He's got me blocked.
Speaker 2:I don't even have my number program. I think he just contacted me by email, right. But he said I don't know if he was checking his. I'm sure he was, because all them guys over at Skills and he was a firearm instructor and I'm sure it's him checking us in. But when I, when I got almost got deployed again I missed those couple days my class coordinator saltzman. He was like you need to, you need to go over and check your gun. I was like where I said the armory's closed man, you, you have to do that. On Sunday I had to take mine over to EKU PD and check it.
Speaker 2:And check it and I'm like they told me to bring this to you. I was like I don't know how I'm going to get it back.
Speaker 5:It always. It always amazed me that they wanted you. You're driving around in a marked unit.
Speaker 3:But they wanted you unarmed.
Speaker 5:We don't want you unarmed.
Speaker 2:I'm pretty sure I left it there over that weekend when I came home and I was like oh yeah, so I had to go over to EKU PD, get my gun and then check it in the armory when you went back on Sunday. Oh, we did yeah.
Speaker 1:We left ours there.
Speaker 5:Fridays and Mondays was the only days that we checked ours in and out. Left them for that, just kept our duty where our off duty in the car. Because do we call Derek?
Speaker 2:do you know what they want us?
Speaker 5:to do it. He's like, yeah, it's stupid, just keep it check.
Speaker 2:Honestly, I was like they're gonna.
Speaker 3:This is gonna be the shakedown, yeah they were already after it class 324 they had our number.
Speaker 2:I do, yeah, it's because of Danny, I guarantee you, but we had a, it was fun. You know, the police academy is fun and sometimes I look back at, and that was 2002, 2003. Sometimes I feel like it was yesterday and that's what's weird, how you're like that was just, and now you're like man, that's been 23 years or 22 years ago.
Speaker 3:I'm like man, the guy that sat beside me in the academy Rodney Richardson. He's chief of Richmond PD now. Oh really, and he was there as a Richmond PD officer you know which he lived in Richmond, so he didn't live in the dorm, he got to stay at home. That's bull crap.
Speaker 2:They should have made him live. Well, I mean, if it's good enough for him, it's good enough for me. The way I saw it Exactly, I can only live 45 minutes a week.
Speaker 3:And I've got a gas car. But yeah, it was a good time you networked across the state.
Speaker 2:Some of them got. You know, you're like I wonder how this guy's doing, how this guy's doing. And you know, when I was, I went to the Chiefs a little introduction to the new Chiefs thing, yes and made good friends with some of them. I knew from, like I saw one guy from the academy there, I saw another guy from Sargent's Academy there and from West I don't know, up somewhere in Louisville. I was like that's not even real town is it?
Speaker 2:It's like this little subdivision just pretty close to Churchill Downs. I was like I don't want to go there, man, because he's like I need a night shift sergeant right now. I said, man, I'm good, I'll just stay right where I'm at. But the guys out in western Kentucky that you know, when I left they're like, hey, come over, come on out. I was like I'm pretty sure y'all have way too many tornadoes out there. I'm pretty good out here, but I appreciated them guys doing that stuff.
Speaker 4:Yeah, those are flatlands out there. It messes with your mind and everything like that. I don't know what to do with it. You know, just sitting here thinking how many police departments because I know fire departments for the most part how many police departments across the state have their own academy? Besides, like I know, Louisville and KSB?
Speaker 5:Louisville, Lexington. They just started a Western Kentucky DOCJT Really yeah.
Speaker 2:Bowling Green started one. Oh, okay, that's been probably Because it was such a drive for all your Western agencies.
Speaker 5:I have they open the one out was yeah, it's, they're running their first class right now what's that?
Speaker 2:it may maze, maze field or some of like. We're the tornado, yeah and a couple years ago, you know, I think it's right there. So they're doing a Western Kentucky one. Bowling Green has one, but it's just for Bowling Green PD. Yes, which surprises me, but that's a pretty good size. I don't know how many officers they got.
Speaker 5:Then you've got Louisville, metro, lexington, and then if you transfer, like if one of us was to transfer from here to Louisville or Lexington, they still make you go through a two-week course.
Speaker 1:Is that it Like a lateral?
Speaker 3:Yeah, a lateral course.
Speaker 5:You still got to do your little pops and shoot.
Speaker 2:So I was in class with guys from Hopkinsville. I was in class from Northern Kentucky, from Sturgis, oh yeah been to Sturgis. I only thought Sturgis was in North Dakota.
Speaker 3:I didn't even know, there was one in Kentucky. You're not missing anything, not at all. Well, the guy that's in our academy class he was from Hopkinsville but he's a former Navy SEAL, according to him Didn't portray that image, but that was his story, was he?
Speaker 5:more like a gravy seal, yeah, so you know he's like team six.
Speaker 3:I don't want my name on this academy shirt because I don't want a bunch of rednecks in eastern kentucky to see that and come and try to hurt me or my family or whatever. And I'm like I don't know how y'all do it out west in the flatlands, I said, but in the hills, I mean, we actually get in vehicles that say sheriff on the side of them and police and such. I mean that's good with this you know?
Speaker 5:yeah, you're pretty well targeted if you're going to be talking when we get out of the car they kind of know who we are, and so on on.
Speaker 3:Because I was over the t-shirt there, so instead, instead of his name, we put Top Secret.
Speaker 2:That's funny, well, I had gotten the same deal from Hop Town. I think he was with I don't know Delta or something I don't know, but he was like I don't know guys, I don't know about that having my name on that stuff I was like you hop.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's got to be a community vibe or something. There they're all special forces.
Speaker 2:Yes, I feel safer already but I mean I might as well be in Tennessee over there in that area. So it's uh, I remember, gosh, some of the academy guys. There was this older guy and he failed out on and he was not from Hopkinsville but one of the towns right outside the Fort Campbell Gate right there. So it was real close to that. But whatever little town that is right there and he was a great dude man. Him and Greg Turner used to go on smoke breaks together every hour on the island Big team.
Speaker 2:Let's go smoke, buy me a pop. He will not come on this podcast for some reason, but anyway, I mean great dude, great dude, and we go to skills and there's two parts of that. You had to do the use of force continuum. You know, know it. You had to write it down on the pyramid. Yeah well, the pyramid. You know most pyramids go this place but he just inverted it and he went.
Speaker 2:He had it perfectly right. He just had it flipped over and they that was a fail. And then he goes into the like the practical stuff of cuffing or something I thought I did great and he's like we tested him on this. Well, that instructor had no idea that he'd also just failed, that his force inverted it. Yeah, we're in last week and they kicked him out. We had like two days left. I was like jerks man. He did well, the whole academy class, great guy.
Speaker 3:And bang bang he's done.
Speaker 2:I was like wow.
Speaker 5:Cold hearted that may have been a blessing in disguise.
Speaker 2:He would have been a good officer, but it's just one of them deals man. I don't know if he got to come back. Could you imagine, though, going through we were 16 weeks? Sorry, but 16 weeks. You're in your 16th week and you're out.
Speaker 3:You're unemployed. That's crazy.
Speaker 5:I mean that was unlikely for me at 16 weeks, yeah we have a very ten weeks was forever.
Speaker 3:Okay, I'm just telling you, 23 was a long time, and what made it worse?
Speaker 5:is 23. Wouldn't have been that bad straight through, but we caught it at the right time to where we had the two-week break for Christmas and then a week off for Thanksgiving, so it was three weeks of just extending my life.
Speaker 2:I just want to get out and get on the road, so I'd been to the academy. I just came home from Belgium on our front line fighting the Moroccans.
Speaker 3:So I've been gone for Frontline, Frontline dude Fighting the Moroccans.
Speaker 2:The Moroccans, damn Moroccans. So I've been gone, for you know we've almost gone a year and been home like a couple months before I started the academy. So I mean, I was married. You know, we'd been married a couple years and I was like so we've been married now for 26 years, but really just 25 because it was a full year. I never even saw her.
Speaker 3:You were non-existent.
Speaker 5:I was. She was wife and dad alone.
Speaker 2:I mean it was tough, but we made a habit. She would come up on Wednesdays up to Richmond because I was so scared to go home. Yeah, I was scared to death to get caught.
Speaker 4:I don't know, yeah
Speaker 3:that's yeah, that's worried, which they were calling in on us a lot too actually runner would come to me and go hey, so so-and-so, you probably need to go talk to him Because they're getting ready to get checked, I mean. So he was a good liaison, yeah, I liked Runner.
Speaker 5:He was a good guy For sure, man, I wonder. I think he retired during our class. Yeah, finally he finally retired. I think he retired during our class. Yeah, finally he finally retired.
Speaker 2:So Lexington Fire had an academy, so how's that?
Speaker 3:That's a long one, isn't it? It is, which I mean. When I got hired at Lexington I was already a level two firefighter and had EMT all that. So for EMT you just had to sit through the lectures and didn't have to test Well being, a few other guys actually drew training incentive because we were already certified firefighters when we got hired. I mean, I was teaching for the state, as a state instructor even, and so we were getting that incentive check. And one of the guys that sat beside me you know we got our checks and mine's more than his because the incentive was tagged on it but he didn't know that he was, you know, brand new to the fire service.
Speaker 3:So I'm like check this out, cecil, what are you getting paid more than me for? I said I guess they're paying. Uh, understand, yeah, but going through the academy and then the entire lexton fire department's going through survival and rescue is when that class first came out from the state of kentucky and they had state fire come in and teach it. Well, I was one of the instructors that taught that class and so. But the instructors are like listen, reams, you can't wear your orange helmet for this class. You're going to have to wear your state helmet. I'm like, okay, I mean this is not uniform, but all right. They said, because an orange helmet can't teach firefighters what's going on, you're going to qualify for that Not an orange helmet I'm glad that there's
Speaker 1:always an orange aspect.
Speaker 3:We had orange guns and they've got orange helmets. But orange helmets, you were the probie, I mean, you were the new guy. You're like hang on a second.
Speaker 2:When you're sitting back at first and you're like yeah.
Speaker 1:All right, guys, I got something to do.
Speaker 2:Let me teach you all how to really do this now.
Speaker 3:All right, recruit, go ahead. Lee Cruz came out and did an interview that morning with us and so I was doing the window bailout and he's sitting there talking about it and he's like I can see where this would be effective. You know, if you're at your girlfriend's house and her husband comes home, you're needing to get out the window quick.
Speaker 1:You know I'm like great your girlfriend's house and her husband comes home. You're needing to get out the window quick is he still on?
Speaker 2:is he still got a show on? Yeah yeah, that's funny. He was funny guys so you went with some crazy stuff.
Speaker 3:I know it's got to be wild up there, but y'all had to meet precincts and stuff which I mean we had 21 stations while I was there and I was riding the buggy one day and we get sent to a domestic at one of the little roach motels and we come pulling up, we get out of the ambulance and this girl that was into drug activity and into prostitution we go walking in the room and this girl looks up and goes hey Fuzz. And I'm like what who?
Speaker 3:It's like walking with Richie Riddle in a chicken face hey Richie, hey girl, so come to find out she was originally from East Bernstadt and I arrested her for prostitution down at the truck stop in Corbin before when I was before my Lexington fire days. But she recognized me, so the other guys on the buggy were like so how many prostitutes up here in lexton do you know?
Speaker 5:yeah, I didn't know. I knew that one.
Speaker 3:It would be easier to count the ones I know but you know it's hard to be cool when they call you by your nickname in the door.
Speaker 2:Speaking of that, oh Eddie we gotta tell them, eddie, he knew him down there at the oh yeah, he was the original prostitute police, so he was, he was vice yes, he was the vice squad he was
Speaker 2:he brought me down. Well, I was on Derek's squad. I don't know if he was working, well, I know you've been there when he's pulled these antics. Yes, so it could have been any deputy, it could have happened to any officer, you just didn't know Right. Hollers up to the PD and we was all just sitting around, hollered up, said hey, derek, y'all, come down to the sheriff's office. We don't know what we got. We wouldn't really listen to what they had down there, you know. And Corbin the pilot, and he's like hey, come in, sit down, close your eyes, guys, close your eyes we think he's going to surprise us with like some food.
Speaker 2:No man, this girl comes out. I open my eyes up and there she is topless Like some food. No man, this girl comes out. I open my eyes up and there she is topless. I was like, oh my gosh, Derek's over there, like what are you going to do? I was like I don't know, I just ran out. I was like you're going to get me in trouble this podcast is still going to get me in trouble for that, and he's still getting me.
Speaker 2:But man, he could get them. Man, I don't know if he just listened to them. I don't know he was the best guy.
Speaker 3:Well shoot, that's 98, the year I went to the academy. I rested 42 that year. Oh my gosh Jeez. And that was in full uniform in a marked car. I mean, it wasn't undercover. Just listening on the CB, just listening on the CB, and I would park and kind of walk in back in the back in the safe haven area and stand in the edge of the parking lot and watch the girls go truck to truck. You know, and you could sit there and listen to them on the little handheld CB and whenever they'd make a couple, three stops, then go beat on the door and bring her out and she'd have her money stuffed in her sock because that was the only part of her costume she didn't take off stuffed in her sock because that was the only part of her costume she didn't take off.
Speaker 3:It's awful, but the one you're talking about that was willing to put on the escapades or whatever.
Speaker 2:It was just the right. I don't know why I was a new, really new officer. It was just like we're going to get him.
Speaker 1:He was like a dragon he was like dragon possums or whatever.
Speaker 2:It was like eddie's gonna get you good with yes, he would with it with his working girls.
Speaker 3:well, I arrested the same girl one night and she's like where's officer eddie? I said officer eddie's working day shift now because he wouldn't arrest you women and I. That's why I'm working that shit. I had Mark Parks riding with me and so I had the screen opened up, but she kept reaching up and playing with his ears and stuff. He was so uncomfortable he was ready to jump out the window. He was ready to walk back to London for Corbin. She was just messing with him the whole way. Oh my gosh, wow.
Speaker 2:That's awesome. Here we get you in the. Oh my gosh. Do you remember when he about cut his hand off or jabbed that knife in his hand? That was the first time I drove a police car.
Speaker 3:Is that right yeah?
Speaker 2:I'm pretty sure I'd drive it up to the hospital Because he wasn't able to. His grandkids are my niece and nephew. It was their birthday party. My dad he had a new case knife. He was trying to open up a present. Dad's like that's a pretty sharp knife. My grandpa's like he's taking it right here, deep right there.
Speaker 3:He didn't know what to say Really, let me see, he came out and was like, oh my gosh.
Speaker 2:So yeah, that's the first time I drove a sheriff's office, the only time I think I've ever drove a sheriff's SO car.
Speaker 3:I was driving it because he's had to drive my car up to the hospital.
Speaker 2:I was bringing it up there so I could get back home. Oh man, it was awful. It was awful.
Speaker 5:I was like what's going on?
Speaker 2:it was good, I miss that guy.
Speaker 3:Mm-hmm, he was something. He was definitely entertaining.
Speaker 2:He was a legend he really was, so we, so you had. Now you went from there to the to the airport.
Speaker 3:I worked this. Me and John Blanton were working together at the, SO yeah, and then he applied for Lexington Fire and I'm like you know that that's a pretty good salary there. I believe I'll try that too. And John he always, when we would work together, he would always say, Fuzz, you're killing me. I mean, I can't count the times that he went home early because his blood pressure was high due to my antics with him. That checks out.
Speaker 5:And so he would tell everybody.
Speaker 3:He'd say I got a bullet with Fuzz's name on it. It's just for him.
Speaker 2:Hey, I saw him at a basketball game. I was going up there, I thought about it my brother's called the basketball games on the radio and stuff and he was up there he's part of the hardwood club or something that's out and he was like I said, hey, you ready to come on the podcast? Man, he's yeah, I guess I don't know what are you going to ask?
Speaker 5:me. I was like I don't know, yeah, I'm going to ask Denny about it, it's coming, it's coming, they're coming on, but they just don't know it yet.
Speaker 3:He was notorious for setting a dispatch on second shift, and so if we went on domestic, if one of us was off, we'd have to take a city unit with us. Out in the county We'd have sergeants.
Speaker 3:I mean mean, supervision was supervise yourself, and so be good back in the good old days, you know but uh, I yelled at chris edwards and I'm like you know, can uh, eight, eleven, eighteen, have authority to back me up on this call out in the county? And he was like, yeah, because we shared the same frequency and stuff then. Well, that pushed John's buttons again you know.
Speaker 3:And so he shows up, the maiden woman they've been fighting. I pull in, john pulls in right behind me. They're out in the yard, so they kind of split up a little bit. Well, john gets out of the car and start pointing at me, coming at me, going Fuzz, I'm going to kill you if you ever do that again on the radio. So here's this man and woman. They're like man.
Speaker 1:These two guys have got issues, somebody's going to have to break them up. We're trying to have our own debate.
Speaker 3:We're trying to have our own fight.
Speaker 4:They're still in our thunder, it's okay.
Speaker 2:We can work through this, honey, it's I never thought about that, but that tactic might work.
Speaker 5:I mean, it killed him off guard.
Speaker 1:So John tells everybody.
Speaker 3:he was trying to go to Lexington to get away from me for his health, and then I got hired and went with him so he didn't escape.
Speaker 2:He finished up there, he retired. I don't know how many years he did up there. We'll have to ask him. He's coming on okay we're gonna have him.
Speaker 4:I'm sure he's got some great fuzz stories too see if you can't get like a call in by that time.
Speaker 5:So you can call in and ask him different, different questions and all that we can do can call in and ask him different questions and all that we can do. A call in, I might sit you down and call you and just watch him.
Speaker 3:Maybe we'll have a UMS stand-by.
Speaker 2:We'll have them here with us. Oh gosh, lexington Fire, I mean. So you rode a buggy a lot.
Speaker 3:Actually, I probably rode a buggy a handful of times, especially for a new guy. I got to be in charge of the hose warehouse, so whenever they ask for volunteers to go to paramedic school.
Speaker 1:That sounds kinky. Who's in?
Speaker 5:charge of the hose. Is that an alternative lifestyle? Diversity my orange helmet. That orange helmet had a feather in it.
Speaker 4:Call me dead.
Speaker 3:But yeah, they're like okay, we need volunteers to go to paramedic school. Well, john, he volunteered, and my sub-mate there, cecil, he volunteered. I'm like I'm really booked with this, keeping the hose repair. So I dodged paramedics school while I was at Lexington. You know they had a chief there for a while that everybody was gonna go, you know, and I'm like that's too close to being a doctor for me.
Speaker 2:Yeah you go to paramedic?
Speaker 4:no, no, but I was gonna say I was up there teaching a class I guess early last year and talked to one of the chiefs and it's like we strongly urge and then when we don't get that, then we volunto in, told people that they're down a paramedic school do you feel like that's beneficial to have fire EMS, or should it be fired and then EMS be it, and either an add-on or a, you know it's separate entity.
Speaker 4:If, if Danville did that, we would be what six, seven fire calls a week. I mean we would. We wouldn't have anything and see, that's what London's doing to get those numbers up mm-hmm you know, you got a show. Commissioners and council members, hey, we're busy and we're doing all that.
Speaker 3:You know it's.
Speaker 5:It's a good way to get quick response oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean it's because from an outside standpoint I'm like yeah, if you can get somebody that can save my life faster than yeah, get them there yeah, because I mean ems may be coming from the other side of the county.
Speaker 3:I mean they're not always at the station exactly and you know. So I mean for the city you've already got that service in play and more and more departments across the nation are doing fire EMS. In Danville we do fire and first responder EMS. We don't transport in an ambulance but we stabilize until the EMS gets there and transports. I can see where it's justified. It's a good use of resources Because if it was just strictly fire, I mean 80% of our runs right now of the 3,000 are EMS.
Speaker 1:It would be boring.
Speaker 3:It would be a nightmare to survive 24 hours of thumb twiddling and you take a state like Florida.
Speaker 4:Florida is like 96%. 95% of the departments are firefighter, paramedics. I mean it's huge, a lot older population. There too, you've a code. You know something like that. A lot of times the Danville PD is beating us there and starting CPR and different things like that before we get there. So it's great. Those guys are great to work with. I will definitely say they are.
Speaker 5:We had a pretty solid relationship there at one time between PD and fire department law enforcement, fire department and then something happened that became a pissing match and then then we got back back in good graces again. I don't know what, but that was always. You see that on TV and all that you know, all the stuff, the, the pranks and stuff going on back and forth and that was always fun.
Speaker 1:We just had to bring Richie though, yeah.
Speaker 4:Richie's the most fun to break.
Speaker 2:He would bash you guys, but yet he'd be the one down there hiding his cruiser inside the fire department. Yeah, it was just a big show for him.
Speaker 3:Why does somebody become a police officer? Because they can't pass the firefighter exam.
Speaker 1:That's right.
Speaker 2:I agree.
Speaker 5:That's what made Joey bitter. I will say that wholeheartedly. I believe that the fire department POP standard is a lot more difficult than police. I was down there.
Speaker 2:I was like I'm going to get on that stair climber.
Speaker 3:I was like I did it Three minutes ain't forever.
Speaker 2:Until you put 80 pounds on your back, brother.
Speaker 3:And you're not allowed to use the handrails.
Speaker 2:I was like it's going to take me about a year to get that. Yeah, you need to feel it that pace picks up pretty good and you're like, okay, I'm all right. Then, hey, put this weight vest on, oh, by the way. Oh, and then you jump off that you've got the wobbles whatever you've got to go.
Speaker 3:I'm like. I think I'm just going to go take a nap I sit on the bottom step for a minute and catch my breath it's different and I get it.
Speaker 2:You've got to take all that stuff up lots of stairs. Police are just like you guys?
Speaker 3:good, yeah, you show up, it's awful hot out here I'm going to block this road about three blocks back the other will pull up right in the middle of the road ain't nothing like a fire department jacking up an entire good road that you can get everybody around though here comes three buggy or three trucks up there and be like safety first they're on the shoulder man.
Speaker 5:I used to get so aggravated about that you'd have a, you know a single vehicle 45 on the yeah and we couldn't signal eight anymore. Yeah, so it's like.
Speaker 1:It's like it's just a 45, I don't need everybody, and then I've got the whole interstate blocked now because in the yes but at the same time it was nice to have you know a truck there so I know I don't have to get worried about some idiot hitting me I'm sure y'all have caught the brunt end of me mad on 192 or something like.
Speaker 2:Why y'all here, oh my gosh and then just go sit down, be like you. Good, yeah, I'm all right now, I know.
Speaker 3:Thanks for coming I'll be up there after a while playing.
Speaker 2:PlayStation.
Speaker 4:We had a wreck here in Danville one day on the bypass down towards Colton's. It was a pretty good accident. I think it was nighttime and all of a sudden a Danville PD unit comes flying by our fire truck pulls right up next to the patient. I was like that's got to be some kind of London guy. Sure enough, it was Jacob getting out of the car right there.
Speaker 5:Yeah, a London guy. Sure enough, it was Jacob getting out of the car right there. Yeah, a London guy Front row parking we were used to getting to the tall cars.
Speaker 2:Yeah, what are you up to here?
Speaker 5:We would joke around and be like we're going to get the information for the evidence eradication team.
Speaker 2:Can we roll with you?
Speaker 5:Jay.
Speaker 2:I went to like what's the supervisor classes of ICS? So I remember going down and Vigger was teaching a class down at down there by the lake. What's not, what's that fire department?
Speaker 3:ball drop and I was like it's two different worlds down there by the lake. What's not past Cold.
Speaker 2:Hill, what's that? Fire department? Bald Rock, bald Rock, yeah, and I was like it's two different worlds. On the class started on. It was a weekend class, so the class started like on Friday Uh-huh, uh-huh, and you couldn't even the smell in. There was horrible, yeah. And then all them old guys. I just went and took the Saturday bath the next day it was great, Thanks guys.
Speaker 2:But I was sitting there and I was talking to them. I was like you know, we're just trying to preserve, we're into evidence preservation here. We want to preserve the scene here. Why do you guys come and just wreck everything Life?
Speaker 3:comes first or whatever. Yes, life is the priority. I was like I don't know.
Speaker 5:I've seen stabilizations on down the line, which is actually that makes more sense but when you're trying to get insurance information all this stuff that don't really matter. They're looking too. You're dying.
Speaker 2:I don't care, I need your insurance because I've done it as an officer.
Speaker 3:Can you get his license and his insurance card out of his wallet? I don't care, I need your insurance Because I've done it as an officer. I've been up in the back of the buggy. Can you get his license and his insurance card out of his wallet for you all to?
Speaker 2:take off. It was just two different approaches on that scene and it's good to talk about because cops are like I've got to work this wreck. Fire is going to get here and do what they have to do put the fire out, maybe have to do CPR, just tend to wounds or whatever, and, of course, cut every door off.
Speaker 3:Yeah, the top off again makes it easier on the adjuster to total the car and there at the end it would be everybody be in a circle around the insurance card because the EMS had to have it too here you go.
Speaker 2:I got a picture of it. Who's? Unit one, but it is you don't talk about. Hey, I don't understand why you do this, and this is why we do this you don't do, you don't pass them on the way to the call.
Speaker 5:That was Cody, wasn't it, that was. Cody Cody definitely got his pee peepee smacked over that.
Speaker 2:You should probably go into that car. Which one was it? I don't know.
Speaker 5:Ricky was driving. Ricky was driving the buggy.
Speaker 2:He was driving a big truck. Was it a full truck? Yeah, it was a full truck, I think.
Speaker 5:So yeah, and Cody was running signal and got behind him and I guess Ricky's just driving trying to get to the call too, he just whips around and passes and goes to oh man, it created World War three.
Speaker 2:That's how. That's how. That's why there's boxing matches between fire and police. Yeah, stress relief.
Speaker 4:Yeah, the day that you all stopped canceling us on vehicle fires. That was a terrible day for me, guarantee, because I had the contract on the city fire extinguishers and I mean you all were going through them left and right, so is making money, and oh yeah, I mean we were still gonna use the fire extinguisher.
Speaker 5:Yeah, this up, but yeah.
Speaker 4:I think Rick Cochran told you just wait on the fire department.
Speaker 5:I was like no, rick, let them put that out. Let them put that out.
Speaker 2:I can't sit there and wait.
Speaker 4:Use every extinguisher you got.
Speaker 5:This is the closest I've ever kicked to being a firefighter, that's exactly it.
Speaker 2:I don't know how many fully involved cars.
Speaker 1:It's like I gave it my best.
Speaker 2:Everybody wants to have a dream you remember the old bike shop that was on town, not the one downtown, but it was on down the road a little bit and it was me and Darryl Kilburn were working night shift and we was coming back down the road and we see a fire up the side, like the electric caught on, like the box, you know fuse or something. It caught on fire. The side of it, like the electric caught on, like the box, you know, the fuse or something, it caught on fire at the side of the building and Darrell grabs his you know his fire extinguisher out and I grab mine I'm on the radio. He jumps the fence Three. No, maybe a foot behind it. You could just walk around. I was like, is that the firefighter moment? Yeah, a walk around. I was like you just had to be a firefighter moment.
Speaker 3:I was like Darrell why don't you just walk around? Too simple. The music was playing. I mean you had to make the entrance.
Speaker 2:Was you out there as a rescue call, but I know y'all went to one. The kid got caught in a pond out there behind um, behind Lowe's, that you know. There's a pond way back out there. Yeah, ricky jumps in like hey, I mean it's just mud and it was. He flopped like a frog yes.
Speaker 4:I didn't remember that yeah.
Speaker 5:I never seen a guy more muddy.
Speaker 3:He got stuck in the pond too, got the kid, but he had to be dragged.
Speaker 2:I've never seen more people muddy in my life oh yeah, it's a swamp back there. It's awful but he's fogging out there. I was like golly heroes, I was like. I'm not going. Y'all don't get me out.
Speaker 4:No See, it was out in the county. One time we went to a guy that was on bath salts and he got completely naked and ran through a bunch of briars and climbed a tree and got stuck and a woman called about 10 o'clock in the morning and said y'all might want to come out here. I've heard a guy yelling all night long and get out there and she's like, yeah, he's been yelling, since you know nine o'clock at night.
Speaker 1:I just thought it was some kind of crazy guy.
Speaker 4:But surely enough, he had got his foot stuck between two limbs and fell backwards, oh, and was still conscious, but he was on bath salts the whole night. I'm surprised he didn't gnaw it off no but when they uprighted him and everything, I think he ended up dying on the way over to.
Speaker 2:St Joseph.
Speaker 4:Oh my gosh Jeez, just the things that People wait to call.
Speaker 2:One time I was me and Derek and I think Stuart was working night shift. It was a weird shift. I was catching all the calls. Of course, this guy's out at the shopping center by Burger King. The security guard called hours later and said hey guys, I want to come out here. A couple hours ago this guy's been out here just howling at the moon like a werewolf. I was like what he. He had, uh, went to the hospital for some back pain. He was off of off of greyhound buzz, was he? And ate his fentanyl patch. You remember they used to give them out all the time. Ate that sucker. He went over there and got wild and he's dead. I was like, man, you should have made me call like this when you first saw him wolfing out.
Speaker 3:That's my fault.
Speaker 5:That was weighted because, it was werewolf.
Speaker 3:As far as the city of Namble, you cannot take a nap in your vehicle. Oh God, no, or you're in overdrive.
Speaker 2:Do they put the signs up? That's like a city ordinance or something over there.
Speaker 3:If you see somebody taking a nap, call 911.
Speaker 2:In London. That's just for dogs.
Speaker 3:I can't count the number of runs I've made on sleeping people that were overdosed in their vehicle.
Speaker 5:You've got to leave a note up Don't nark candy on him taking a nap. You got to leave a note up Don't narc candy on him.
Speaker 4:He's taking a nap. We got one about 9 o'clock in the morning one day down Maple Avenue towards Bob Allen and we get down there and I forget which officer was with him. He was waiting for the construction crew to show up. He was the flagger. He had just sat in his car, just, you know, chilling out, just going to take a quick nap.
Speaker 1:But between like in. In five minutes people called oh, we got a, he's out here.
Speaker 4:He's you need to get out here. He's a self-conscious. Yeah, yeah, I mean Five star right there on the bypass. Oh, they'll call all the time they're so used to it.
Speaker 5:Here they're just like.
Speaker 2:Back towards that five star, back towards Tractor Splat layer. I would go out there from the school for the deaf. Houstonville road and that was my I'd go get. I'd go get my favorite black buffalo. That's where I discovered that snuff and no nicotine stuff. I said, heck, yeah, that's the only place I've ever heard about it. That's where I'm going, not a sponsor, but it could be.
Speaker 5:It could be but they had.
Speaker 2:I had that cruiser I drove, had green on it to match the school colors. So I'm setting that thereiser. I drove had green on it to match the school colors. Yeah, so I'm sitting up there and I'm fuel there. So I was getting gas and this guy comes up and he's like where are you from? I was like Danville, what do you mean? He's like Danville. Virginia. I was like we're in Danville, kentucky. Well, I've never seen a green cruiser in Danville.
Speaker 3:I was like, ah, I thought they were just in London we've pulled up on calls and being a reserve engine and the people in the house be like, well, where's engine 12? And I'm like it's broke right now. That's why we're in 17. And I mean, I'm like it's broke right now, that's why we're in 17, and I'm like these people keep up with their apparatus and their cruisers and such.
Speaker 2:Danville City Police is a lot blue or whatever you're driving a green car, you don't match. Are you an imposter? Yes, I am. I'm from London, that's true where's five or six of us up there there's a
Speaker 4:large presence in.
Speaker 3:Danville now between fire and law enforcement.
Speaker 2:So we were allowed to, you know, park park cruisers in in Mount Vernon, so it got to be where there was five or six cruisers sitting in that parking lot up at the 911 center More than what was at the PD.
Speaker 3:isn't that what?
Speaker 2:it is. When John Rock went up there, he was the only one, so he used to park at the sheriff's office. Then another one comes. So they were like, hey, we don't have any room here. Can you guys move up to 911? Yeah, so they had this nice parking lot and then I'm pulling out and the county judge and the 911 director come out. They were like, well, there's a bunch of you up here now. Huh, I was like yeah, he's like you know that part. We on that building right down below you, right there too. I was like you want us to move?
Speaker 5:Well, there's 12 of you up here. Too nice to come out and ask.
Speaker 2:I said I'll tell them, Since you thought of it no-transcript. So you went from Lexington Fire then to Lexington Air Force Bluegrass Airport.
Speaker 3:yeah, For money? Yeah, because I mean it was a $10,000 pay raise to go to the airport because Lexington Fire at that point wasn't paying nearly what it does today, right now, did you have to? Work eight as an officer there and 16 as a fire you did the 24 48 schedule, but eight hours of your 24 was as a patrol officer. Yeah well, I was the new hire, so guess what I got? Third shift. I mean third shift. Third shift's been my law enforcement shift my entire life, don't?
Speaker 2:they shut that gates down.
Speaker 5:Yeah, that's why third shift's the place to be Third shift was always the best shift in law enforcement.
Speaker 3:You know, at 1230 at night the last plane had landed and the people had cleared their luggage by midnight. You know, midnight 30 at the latest.
Speaker 2:That's incoming because TSA leaves now like mine.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so you would lock the front doors of the terminal and the only people in the building were the cleaning crew. And so from 1230 up until 430 or so 4 or 430, the terminal was locked down. So 4 or 4.30, the terminal was locked down and you'd go back over at 4 or 4.30 and unlock the doors so that people could start coming in to go through TSA for the 6am flight. And so I mean, for 4 hours you're sitting over at the firehouse watching infomercials, you know, hanging out. It was a long shift, but they had their own dispatch center.
Speaker 2:They bought P90X. Yes, what else was?
Speaker 3:going on, the girls gone wild man. They were on their back.
Speaker 4:I wonder what kind of reception you can get off of that big Doppler radar. That's crazy.
Speaker 3:But you know you had your own dispatch there. So one of the complaints I had at the airport you know they're like okay, now listen, we know that you've been a police officer in southeastern Kentucky and the airport's a little different. You know we're more customer service. You know it's a class five city the airport is, so it's got its own government. You know the airport boards their governing agency and all that. So they've got their own numbers.
Speaker 3:But we had this guy that didn't want to pay his valet parking fees and so he's raising a ruckus. Well, they call dispatch, said we need an officer out here for an unruly subject. And I get there, he was a frat boy from UK that didn't want to pay. He said that's, that's too much. Well, right, there's the sign on the side of their little building that tells you the daily rate. You've been gone for a week, so that'd be seven times 15. You know that's what you owe, right? Yeah, I said the economy parking's back there and you park it yourself. So you decide to valet and this is what you get. Well, I'm not going to pay it. I said, well, that's fine, you don't have to pay it. I said, well, that's fine, you don't have to pay it. I said but this is private property and we're going to be closing up so it's time for you to leave so I can escort you out to man O' War and you can go wherever you please, but you're not going to stay here. Well, I got to get my bag.
Speaker 3:So we go to the airline desk there because he hadn't got his bag yet. And he's standing there talking to the clerk at, know, at the register. Well, I'm standing there behind him because I'm going to escort him off the property and he turns around and kind of flinches forward at me and he's like that's not even a real badge. We had embroidered badges, you know, it looked like lexington metro badge. He goes, I ain't afraid of that badge. I said it's not the badge you've got to be afraid of.
Speaker 3:And so I'm just standing there, you know, letting him do his thing. He gets his bag, he turns around and flinches again and chest bumps me. Well, I assist him down to the ground so I can check and see if he's got any weapons, cuff him up. Well, while I'm doing that, at the airport there's cameras everywhere. So dispatch monitors those. Well, they yell out you know, all units 411 needs assistance and about that time he's slammed and cuffed and I'm standing back up. They're like never mind he's slammed and cuffed and I'm standing back up. They're like never mind he's got everything under control.
Speaker 3:So the guy's girlfriend comes in from the outside. She's like what? What's going on? I said I'm gonna give him a ride. She's like where to? I said, well, he's going to fayette county detention. I said, uh, the cab line is right down there if you need a ride out of here. And so she ended up catching a cab and going home and he went to jail that night because he wanted to play chest bump with the police they didn't have to bring you in and be like that wasn't very good customer service.
Speaker 2:Or they're like oh, that's how policing goes on.
Speaker 3:We don't get to see that very often, yeah, I mean it's.
Speaker 5:You know, even with community policing and being more lax, you still can't let somebody.
Speaker 3:Yeah, no, I mean that's. He had every break he could get.
Speaker 5:As soon as they lay hands on you. It's yeah.
Speaker 3:Once he made contact yeah, he bought the free ticket, so yeah I couldn't even uh, so you did that for a couple years and then went to vehicle enforcement as an officer here in london, yeah, and then promoted to sergeant, you know so that was fun we.
Speaker 2:We were some down there at the scale house together they'll find Tom's.
Speaker 3:We saw, yeah, it was the best law enforcement job ever, and I mean with the KV it was the land of milk and honey. I mean that's it's a good.
Speaker 2:It was a good, I'm sure still good. I don't know what they do. They don't, they don't hire anymore now. They don't know the tro, do they're?
Speaker 3:absorbed. Now they don't hire anymore.
Speaker 5:No, they don't. No, I think they teach you Troopers.
Speaker 3:Get taught now they actually show the troopers how to do it. Now, that was Jason Van Hook's big thing, you know, because we were wanting equal pay. He's like well, you can't. You know, you've not been to the state police academy. You can't have equal pay. I said now listen. I said I put on any police uniform and somebody's just as arrested I'm I'm pop certified in kentucky. I said you can't put on a cv uniform and do an inspection on a big truck because you've not been trained. I said now who's?
Speaker 5:better trained. That's it. I think we need more money that's an argument when when they would talk about the, uh, the guys that went through leap class, they're like well, they're only half troopers, Well, they've got 36 weeks of training.
Speaker 3:You've only got 20. Yeah, they're half a trooper.
Speaker 5:They give some heartburn for the guys that have been through the entire thing, but they've got way more hours of training.
Speaker 2:They're right of passage through there. It's more like going through a bud's hell. Yeah, I mean it's it's real.
Speaker 5:I mean that's they don't want you to be there if you don't yeah, they encourage you to leave if you don't want to really be there I got, you know, I got marine buddies that said it was tougher.
Speaker 2:Yeah, oh, that's.
Speaker 3:I've heard that many times. This is a lot tougher than any boot camp of any branch of military.
Speaker 2:They told me that I was like I had to do extra time there, getting hurt and stuff at. Marine Corps boot camp. I ain't gonna do that, I'm good.
Speaker 1:I was like yeah, I'm good, guys, you can have this, that's it.
Speaker 5:I'll go back and be a city kid the other day. Did you?
Speaker 2:go. Yeah, I went, I don't remember.
Speaker 5:That must not have been long no, it wasn't, it was long enough hey you gotta try, you gotta try. I remember I was up there and you're all standing in the hallway at attention, you've got your little packet.
Speaker 4:Oh, I remember when you went yeah, your OAL and all that you're standing at attention.
Speaker 5:You've got your little packet and all your, your oh well, yeah, you're oh well, and all that you're standing at attention, they're come through there one of the instructors looked at me and he just grabbed my stuff and all the way down the hall so papers went everywhere and he's like you got 15 seconds to pick all that back up. It's like, well, I might as well just assume the position, yeah.
Speaker 4:It's a lot easier. How many do you want?
Speaker 5:Yeah, let's just cut to the chase. How many towel slides?
Speaker 2:I would say that then the OCJT would be more like going through the Air Force Academy. Then They'd try to just mess with you with testing and stuff.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:If you don't pass this. I mean they would kick you out, but it was not as physical.
Speaker 3:And I mean really as far as education in law enforcement, working as a bailiff. I learned more in the courtroom as a bailiff that makes sense On what the attorneys were looking, looking what loopholes they tried to pick on and such. You know. I mean having a couple years as a bailiff really helped me, I think, as far as being a road unit, because you learned who the repeat offenders were, you know and such. I mean I had a year in corrections, a couple years in the courtroom and it. It just helped me to interact.
Speaker 2:I guess use that verbal judo for an academy term, you know to to work through some things keep you out of some bad tickets, some bad case works. Never thought about that. Start as a bailiff. Yes, listen, I've said it from the beginning.
Speaker 5:If if you can get to where an agency that'll let you work on the road or what let you work. Do something before you go to the academy, you're better off, you're just. By the time you get out to the road, you're just. You're so much better than somebody just come out green.
Speaker 4:That's kind of how ems is in the fire you know, you have so much interaction with them and you, you work some calls with them and you, when, by the time you go to EMT school, you kind of like, okay, yeah, I kind of understand this, I got a, I got a gist for it.
Speaker 5:Yeah, yeah, it's, you get that that on-job shadowing, I guess, is what you need really more than anything. You learn more that way, then, because you come out of the academy and I mean, and they teach you a whole lot and some of it you use and some of it you don't, but most of it is. I remember you know most of the instructors were well, this is what we're going to teach you, but when you get to your department they may have something different.
Speaker 3:So it's like then, all right, you know it's, and as a sergeant and fto, I mean anytime we had a new hire that was coming out on fto. I listen, not everybody wants to kill you. Even though the academy has told you this, you're ready to draw down on granny after church. I mean she's probably not looking to take you out. So you know, trying to get that reset in the mind, I mean, yes, obviously, be on your guard.
Speaker 5:Yeah, don't get complacent.
Speaker 3:And I would tell mine. I said I want you to talk to every person, like you would your grandmother, until they give you a reason not to talk to them, and you know. As far as complaints, as you know, when I was a sergeant, I'm like if I'm not getting complaints on you, you're probably not working hard enough, right, you know, because people are not going to be happy to see the blue lights. I mean that was vehicle enforcement, I mean we were a high-ticket, you know production part of the crew, you know.
Speaker 2:If we was running into a call right now and one of y'all was behind me with blue lights and we was running signal nine somewhere, I'm like, oh gosh, we're going to the same car I used to. There's a dread about seeing a police officer behind you like is everything okay? Did I pay my? How fast am I going? And then that cop's back there going. God, I wish this guy would hurt me.
Speaker 1:We got stopped over in Indiana and I mean I was, and then that cop's back there going. God, I wish this guy would hurt me, just go on. We got stopped over in.
Speaker 5:Indiana and I mean I was. I knew I was getting stopped because we passed head on and I seen the brake lights, I said ah, here we go. So I pulled over and I mean I ended up not getting a ticket, but it's a professional courtesy business.
Speaker 2:If he was in Virginia, he was getting one. Oh yeah, they brought their own. They don't care, they don't care.
Speaker 3:They get gold stars for riding their own. They get a stoplight when they turn around. That brings back a story on Zanet, on Darrell. So this is 03, because I just bought a new truck and the temp tag was in the window or something like that. I mean it was a brand-new truck, that we were in East Bernstadt because it was Larry Walls' bachelor party and we dropped Larry off and I was headed back into London and met Darryl there on 490 and Darryl was like he was profiling because he said I saw a brand new Chevrolet truck in East Bernstadt. I knew it didn't belong here.
Speaker 5:you know they say not to profile and you shouldn't on some stuff. But 90% of the time it works. So he pulls us over and you shouldn't on some stuff.
Speaker 3:But 90% of the time it works. It works. So he pulls us over. Well, nick Minton was in the back of the truck and he sticks his head out, squalling. I won't say Dougie Jones was riding with Daryl that night. I'm sorry, oh no. So I drop it down in first gear and pop the clutch and off we go as he's making his approach. I mean, so there's gravels flying off the front of Daryl's car. I mean he's jumping back in to call in pursuit and as we're coming up on London, I'm like I better pull over, because city police will will be up here and they're liable to shoot a man as he comes into town.
Speaker 5:Different times. Yeah, it was different times back then, or?
Speaker 3:maybe not. He said that Darryl's knuckles were white.
Speaker 2:the rest of the night, though, because he was made, he turned around after he saw who it was my first ride was with him you know the police and I was like, oh my gosh, I was getting car sick from the get go. I remember him thinking I was like I was like you gonna stop that. I wonder if he's gonna stop his car. It was like taking out the ditch line. He's probably just on his cell phone he looks good.
Speaker 4:He dropped something looks good from my house we've had some fun times.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I placing in this county different world.
Speaker 3:Oh, yeah, yeah, I can speak, even fire everything about it.
Speaker 2:It's like if it's gonna go crazy, it's gonna be right here it's gonna be right.
Speaker 5:Yeah, I don't know why it's such a.
Speaker 3:Bermuda Triangle. Yeah, it is.
Speaker 2:If bad weather's going to come.
Speaker 1:It's a magnet. It's going to happen, it's going to come right here there you go?
Speaker 2:I went to. You. Don't go to East Bernstead if there's a tornado to watch. Yeah, no, no, yeah, I was like hey, mom, my wife had went to somewhere.
Speaker 4:And the ones in when was that? 2011? Whenever it was the big, was a heavy bill. 13, tell me.
Speaker 2:Well, 13 somewhere in it up and I was like my wife and daughter around town. My son was younger and I was like I just go down, mom and dads, and you know they got a nice big basement. I didn't too, but they had like recliners and tv stuff, so we just go hang out down there. We're down there on filter plant road, like we've touched down, like right across the river or the creek down there.
Speaker 2:Which creek? We and dad was like what in the world? Lights just flicker and we went out. I was like, oh my gosh, it was a meth bubble at one time. Yeah, yeah, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know what you're blaming it on now.
Speaker 3:Yeah, but the man said, the storms follow that Rock Castle River.
Speaker 2:He said that's what it does that water draws? The storm. Was you working on when it hit Carnaby Square?
Speaker 3:I was working that day and then I was working on when it hit East Bernstadt too, because they were asking for people to shut down Arthur Ridge, and so I'm like I'm good for this, so I take my cruiser, just park it sideways in the road and nobody's going to come in Because they're like we got all the help we need. I don't know if the ambulances can even get out once we get to the patients, and mean people were pulling up and saying we're trying to get up there to help. I'm like no, unless they've asked for you specifically, go find you someplace else. This, this road's closed and you know it's gave a few people heartburn, but that that was what they needed.
Speaker 3:They needed fewer vehicles up on the ridge.
Speaker 5:It was more of a Hendrix to have more people helping.
Speaker 2:It was awful. I mean, I was up there and you're like I've got to get down. I'll never get back. Good luck, mom and Dad. It's like when we had the interstate shooting a couple months ago. I'm down at Mom and Dad's again. Which the 49 mile marker. We're on filter plants, we're what? Three, four miles.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because of crow flies.
Speaker 2:Yeah, maybe closer. But we're like Mom, dad, there's been a shooting down here at the interstate, don't know what's going on. Me and my brother went down there and watched UK play football and already upset about the loss there. So we're sitting down there. We're like there's been shooting down here, there's active shooter stuff going on, so stay put. But I was like I got to get out of here because I know what's coming. They're going to shut down everything. And I was like I just want to get back to town.
Speaker 1:I want to get home.
Speaker 2:So me and my brother, we leave, and I called Mom and Dad Y'all good, y'all okay, we're stuck in traffic. Where did you go? We went and fed the cows up from the second bridge, I'm like, but I didn't think nothing about it. I've been stuck in traffic for like four hours. I was like we should put that memo a little bigger.
Speaker 3:Paint the picture a little clearer. You're going to get stuck.
Speaker 2:if you leave, you're going to get stuck out.
Speaker 4:We left a ball game. We were at the UK football game and had to go to Nicholasville, to Lancaster, lancaster, stanford all the way down to Pulaski County and up and over.
Speaker 2:That's a long drive, but it was faster than coming to us.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it was the parking lot of I-75.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and traffic was bad on 80 that night you know people going around different things, diverting, yeah, and that's what this town if there's anything that happens on I-75, this place locks up like no other and I don't know if that happens in Danville. If something happens on the bypass, people don't get diverted to go downtown usually.
Speaker 3:They try to avoid downtown. You can circle around kind of.
Speaker 4:Yeah, really, I can't remember where we've had a big traffic problem. Knock on wood.
Speaker 3:Really, I can't remember where we've had a big traffic problem. Knock on wood Because we're working hard Tomorrow. Let's go. Let's go, let's wake up.
Speaker 5:Your ears are burning. It'll be me and Dylan going that got it.
Speaker 4:But you know the funny story about that tornado. We went to Bradford Road I'm sorry, arthur Ridge, no, and me, joey Robertson, dylan Blair and Justin Vanna. We went down.
Speaker 1:We had to go down low Arthur Ridge because they said yeah, there's some houses back there and it got tore up.
Speaker 4:We crawled under trees, over trees, all that Finally got to a house back there and that's about time the sheriff's department got their hummer. Yeah, and what's the guy from Danville PD that used to work Sheriff's Department?
Speaker 3:Grigsby. Grigsby came back here and picked us up.
Speaker 4:We didn't make it a mile through a field and that damn Hummer was hung up. We had to walk two miles through a field just to get back to the rescue truck.
Speaker 2:During the floods out in eastern Kentucky, we went out there and worked. What was that? Cold, run Cold.
Speaker 5:Run, so they got flooded this time. Yeah.
Speaker 2:So Cold Run had a Hummer and they gave it to Wattsburg and I'm like I'm driving it Because I was in the Marines. I was like I don't want to drive them suckers. I get in there and I'm like I forgot how absolutely uncomfortable these stupid things are. And dusty. I was like, ah, and we only drove maybe a half mile. I was like, ah, I'm just going to let this sit here.
Speaker 5:If you're the least bit husky, we'll say you don't fit in there very well.
Speaker 4:No, I think that was the most important one. Okay, we're good.
Speaker 2:Yeah, let was make sure we wouldn't hold our time.
Speaker 5:Yeah no we've had yeah, we got it. We got in there, all kitted out when we went.
Speaker 2:Yes, too much and that was, yeah, getting in there, I think I had this much room in between my carrier and my they had it built to shut, but not enough because we went through this big.
Speaker 5:I've got a video of it. We went through this big water hole so the Carnegie Square.
Speaker 2:This was before you came down. How old were you in? Like 2001 or something? Third grade, so that one? Now I hadn't I'm. Was it 2000, 2001? It's one of them years, because the next year came the big ice storm, so I think it was 2002. So 2001,. We're sitting there. My wife had just come in from Big Lots over there and then we were buying the house we're in now, so it was in the paths because it and then I remember all the debris being across Main Street and stuff in front of Hardee's, I mean in chunks, yeah, and I lived there on Morgan Street.
Speaker 2:So I mean it's coming. That's where hog head lived over there. Jason J Mac was living over there. Lodge was building a house and he was living in the apartments that I was in. Josh Gaylor lived right behind us. I mean it was like a lot of cops lived there and I'm sitting there and I'm like, oh my gosh, what is this absolute? You know, I remember coming out and Jason McAllen's on his radio.
Speaker 5:There's nothing to see here, just looking down there and they were just, it was like it was just crazy cuz there's debris everywhere and that storm.
Speaker 2:It was so sunny outside mm-hmm and it just just whooped up one right quick, and then the sun came back out, came back out, came back out. I was like what in the world?
Speaker 1:But it tore up one in there pretty good.
Speaker 2:On those streets right there it might have been a mile and a half two mile tornado, is it Yep?
Speaker 3:So you was working on that one? Yeah, because I won't say that was when I lived on Morgan Street too. Oh, you were there too.
Speaker 2:Everybody lived on Morgan Street too. Oh, you were there too, everybody lived on.
Speaker 3:Morgan Street. I lived in a basement apartment there at 108 Morgan.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you were right there downstairs like we're the next ones. I was at 106 or whatever right there 104.
Speaker 1:That was my little dungeon apartment that I kind of— Is that where Sam's— Because there were no windows or anything in it? Is that where Sam's room was? Because there were no?
Speaker 3:windows or anything in it. I mean, it had one way in one way out.
Speaker 1:It was a fire nightmare, so I kept my gear in the apartment in case it caught on fire.
Speaker 2:I could find my way out Was that in those big brick ones.
Speaker 3:Yeah, where the storage buildings are in front of it now.
Speaker 2:We were neighbors then. I was upstairs and L lodge lived right there.
Speaker 3:Yep, and then you were down in the dungeon I had an electric bill that was like 20 bucks sweating the 20 bucks too.
Speaker 4:So we were.
Speaker 2:We were neighbors that day. Yeah, that's right norm from the high, yeah, from the middle school, lived upstairs.
Speaker 3:He was right there beside me.
Speaker 2:Oh, that's a great place. You said you were there. We were neighbors, didn't even listen. I got some questions. Now I need to answer.
Speaker 4:Great sounds.
Speaker 2:Those weren't peacocks after all, that was a dungeon in there.
Speaker 5:So, you were there.
Speaker 2:Liza was right above you. If you came out of your dungeon he was right there. I think my father-in-law was living there. It was just crazy Wild storm. My dad saw it. He left Country Club. Or dad saw it, he left Country Club or Crooked Creek. He'd been out golfing with my brother, he's like what in the world's? That over there Just a big white cloud. He was like I think it's the tornado, Dad. Nah, it can't be, it's sunny. Then all of a sudden it went through those trailers over the manufacturer homes over there.
Speaker 3:I had that manufacturer Holmes over there, all that company. I think that's a tornado. Yeah, that's a tornado, it started lifting it up.
Speaker 2:Wow, what else you got for us. I know you got something.
Speaker 5:We've talked, somehow we've still ended up talking police stuff.
Speaker 2:We're just going to go where I'm comfortable.
Speaker 5:Let's get into some good fires. How? Long have we been we've got an hour and 48 we can do a two part police.
Speaker 2:Now we're going to fire you asked him about a fire. I can't ask questions on fire, except for what's the craziest fire you went to, because that's mine that's all I know how to interview on a fire.
Speaker 5:We don't know anything about a fire.
Speaker 3:I've got two on the fires and the the first one is the clubhouse out at Levi Jackson. When that tone dropped, or whatever, we responded out. John Blanton was there and there were five of us that responded that day I mean, volunteer department, when everybody's at work, you get a smaller turnout right and so we pull up and start making attack on the fire. We go in I mean I'm laying on my belly, spraying the nozzle as hard as it will go, whipping the nozzle around, and I'm just like, okay, it's not cooling off any, if anything it's, it's. Drove me into the floor. So I tell the, the guy that's behind me, I'm like, listen, we got to back out, we're not winning here, we we're going to get hurt. Was it John? John was pumping the truck, wes Wheeler, god rest his soul. He was the one that was behind me and he was a probie at the time. So I mean he had never had experience with fire and he was crawling along.
Speaker 3:Well, I come out and my gear when I went in was the gold color, pbi gold. Well, it was jet black and the leather helmet I had was white when I went in and it was blistered in black when I come out. I mean it was so hot. When I took the air pack off you could see the gold of the turnout gear coat under the strap and on my back where the tank was on my back. It was still gold in color, but the gear had pretty much burned up. And so we come out. John's like we're out water. Uh, you got anybody coming to us for water supply. He's like nope, ain't had time. So I get on the radio. I'm like dispatch, we need mutual aid for water supply. They're like who do you want to page?
Speaker 1:I said I don't care.
Speaker 3:If they want to bring water, they're more than welcome to come to the party.
Speaker 2:Y'all at London or y'all at County. We're at Laurel County.
Speaker 3:And so London City had the street sweeper tanker back then. So they brought it out, they brought an engine out, they laid two, three-inch lines from that hydrant when you first come up the hill there at Levi, all the way around to where the clubhouse was, and that hydrant ain't much, I mean, it's just a trickle. So filling two, three-inch lines, it was not a trickle. So so fill in two, three inch lines, it was not a happy hydrant.
Speaker 3:We successfully burnt the entire building down to the foundation. I mean there was not a lot of cleanup to do after we got finished. I mean it's and but but you had a lot of thank yous on that and I tell people, you know, here they get this brand new clubhouse and there wasn't a plaque or anything thanking the fire department for this opportunity to get a brand new clubhouse.
Speaker 3:Just a mention of the insurance company but yeah, that was one of my, you know, more notorious foundation saves, because that's about all that was left, I remember did you ever go to church camp or any camps out there in those little small buildings? In the little cabins and you'd use that clubhouse for lunch and stuff for lunch.
Speaker 2:yeah, that's where the meals were served, which I mean it was a lot of reasons, it was a lot of cabin buildings, all that you know.
Speaker 3:Clear coat on those logs and everything I mean. There wasn't no putting the fire out, it was cooking.
Speaker 2:I remember seeing more wattenberger hanging off the back of that thing talking to the campers as they were lined up all the time.
Speaker 3:There on the rail, yeah, on the rail. So there was that one. And then Lucas Apartments on 4th Street. Yeah, you know when it caught on fire.
Speaker 2:That one. I was in the academy when that one went down. I remember thinking I'm glad I'm not working in the street because that was cold that night, wasn't it?
Speaker 3:It wasn't in the attic.
Speaker 4:Pretty warm up there, pretty warm up there.
Speaker 2:There was an iceberg for like a week or two after that off the side of the house.
Speaker 3:But Hoghead and myself, I know we were upstairs and we'd made it actually into the attic with a two-and-a-half-inch line, a larger line, and we're sitting there fighting fire. Well, they sound the evacuation signal, so we come out. I'm like why we were making advancement on this thing. You know, we're putting the fire out. They're like well, there's fire shooting 60 feet out through the hole in the roof. I said, well, that's 60 feet of fire. That's not burning me in the attic. You know where I'm spraying water. Let it burn out in the sky. Yeah, you know. And they're like no, it's not safe, the building could come down, you know, know, and all this. So the the picture in the front page of the Sentinel, you know, shows me pointing up there, because I'm sitting there yelling at a couple saying, up, there's where we're gonna have to go to put this fire out. We can't stand out here on the sidewalk and extinguish this fire. And so you know, danny's, I remember that.
Speaker 2:I remember that. I remember that. I remember that. I remember that Sentinel picture. It's probably in the fire department now. It is yeah.
Speaker 3:Danny Spurlock. He was the chief at the time and it was not uncommon for him any structure fire that we went to. He would grab me by the air pack strap and say now, fuzz, don't you get. None of my guys hurt what you think.
Speaker 1:I'm just that reckless in there or what I mean.
Speaker 2:I've got a.
Speaker 3:I've got a purpose. I'm going in to put the fire out. Well, I'm not trying to lose guys.
Speaker 1:They're too hard to come by.
Speaker 3:But yeah, my firefighting tactics made him a little nervous, I think, through the years. Oh my gosh, as far as just being aggressive, we've got to get the fire out yeah, using using the guys as fire blankets here.
Speaker 2:You lay down on that you fought fire like you pleased, oh yeah yeah, it was full throttle, that's, that's funny.
Speaker 3:That's how many fires you think you've like big structure fires is I mean in lexton when we were in the academy we had a old funeral home that caught on fire and we got to respond to it on a second or third alarm. You know, as as recruits even that's how shorthanded they were, you know. And so the the uk admin building when it burnt, I got to go to that fire. So I mean there's been some big commercial fires through the Lexington times. There We've been lucky. At Danville there's not been a— You've had it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, knock it off yeah.
Speaker 3:But you know, cta, that anniversary just passed.
Speaker 2:I saw that on Facebook or something. I was like I can't believe that's been. Has it been 22?
Speaker 3:Yeah, it was 03 when it happened, so 22 years. That's crazy.
Speaker 2:I was in the police academy and everybody's like are you from London? I was like yeah.
Speaker 1:You know, these guys that know me in the county are like you know where this place is.
Speaker 2:It's kind of it's kind of.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I've heard of it.
Speaker 2:I'm like man is it blown up.
Speaker 3:I was like huh.
Speaker 2:It's on the news at the Quackers over there, I was watching it. I was like oh my gosh.
Speaker 3:Yeah, but yeah's, I mean that that was probably one of the most fatalities. I mean there's, there's been wreck after wreck. I mean from being an accident reconstructionist, yeah, commercial vehicle side of it, I mean I can't count all the the big fires or reconstructions through the years. I mean they, a lot of them run, but then there's others that stand out, just like it was last week. I mean that's so.
Speaker 2:And it's hard when, like I don't know how many times you've been in the, you know those Lucas apartments have been there forever. You know there's still an empty lot there to this day Weavers you mentioned that there's just an empty lot there that you grow a beating at that place and you're like all those pictures and stuff that were on the wall were your grandfathers.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you're like gone, the history of that Disappeared. Disappear in place and overnight, least chicken, least chicken.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that was a big fire.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And the worst one of all time in London to me. Well, weavers and I'm going to say Chinatown, yeah, chinatown, chinatown was a touch of gold.
Speaker 1:It hurt me bad because I loved it and it was dangerous for the firefighters.
Speaker 2:Did it spark up a couple times yeah.
Speaker 3:I mean they had talking to some of those guys you know that made entry on that one. It was, you know, a hot, nasty fire and I mean it was just dirty kitchen, you know I mean lots of grease spilled up. I mean, it's just when you spray water on grease it just spreads you know I only know that from accidents.
Speaker 2:Not because I'm a firefighter, you know.
Speaker 5:so I only know that from accidents getting on the lighter side though what's what's probably the funniest call as a firefighter I mean I know everybody jokes as you, you know responded to cats and trees and things like that, which we've had our fair share of cats and trees, and my reply is have you ever seen a cat skeleton hanging out of a tree?
Speaker 3:No, exactly. So it's you know Well fucking, but we had an overdose not long ago that they Narcan the gal and she's naked whenever we show up because they've doused her with water, ice water and stuff the age-old overdose treatment Ice cube in the butthole age old overdose treatment Ice cube in the butt hole. I don't know what it is about the ice cubes and orifices, but it does not work. Apparently, that's on the black market.
Speaker 1:That's the way to do it.
Speaker 3:So we are getting ready to pick her up, to put her on the stretcher. We're picking her up. She comes back too Things to try later. And so she wakes up and I'm sitting there holding her hands and she's looking at me and she's like what's going on? I said well, I think you have been dead for a little bit Now you're back with us. She's like this happens to me every time I get Narcan. I wake up naked. Well, number one every time. So that means it's happened more than this time.
Speaker 3:So this was not her first time of being Narcan'd and brought back from the dead.
Speaker 2:I just want to know what officer is taking her clothes off, that's what she's probably wondering.
Speaker 3:Poor thing, Every time she gets Narcan'd she wakes up naked.
Speaker 1:It's like Danny. Every time he drinks, he gets up naked.
Speaker 2:What about you? What's the funniest one?
Speaker 4:The funniest one actually involves law enforcement.
Speaker 5:Of course, of course, it does.
Speaker 4:There in Elizabethtown, I think it was originally like a furniture store or something like that and it caught on fire. So we go and by the time we get there it's well involved. We tried to go to the roof, start cutting a hole to vent it and stuff like that and it didn't. Let me back up a little bit.
Speaker 1:At that time.
Speaker 4:I was living with a buddy of mine and he had just recently divorced. It was an ugly divorce and everything and he was the assistant chief and we had two stations in that volunteer. So he went to the south station and I went to the north station, deer, so he went to the south station, I went to the north station and uh, when I left to get my vehicle to go to the north station, he, uh, he was in the bathroom putting his contacts in. He goes, I'll see you out there, all right, great. So, anyways, we, we get to the fire. It's, it's not a, it's not a good one at all. And uh, by the time we tried to go to the roof, the roof collapsed. So, uh, we're cleaning up and everything, fire gets out. And uh, one of the other assistant chiefs goes, uh, have you seen frank?
Speaker 4:and I was like, uh, no, no, now that I think of it, I haven't. So we start looking around. Can't find frank. We're panicking, we're. We take this building completely apart trying to find him. And we can't find him. And we call hospitals and he's not at a hospital and ask EMS, did they take him? No, nothing. So we eventually called the list town city PD and they hadn't seen him, because where we lived in it was in the heart of Elizabethtown and you had to drive through. They hadn't seen him. So we eventually called the Hardin County Sheriff's Department and they said, yeah, we've seen him. Oh great, where's he at? Well, he's in the Hardin County Detention Center. What do you mean? He's in the Hardin County Detention Center?
Speaker 4:One of our deputies pulled him over and arrested him for car theft and we're like, why? Well, it's a little bit of a misunderstanding.
Speaker 4:What had happened is he had gotten his car. He went to the South End, turned his siren on. Remember the little square box struggles? Yes, he had one of those. Well, in the midst of going down what was Main Street in Lisbetown, the strobe quit but the siren was still going. So a sheriff's deputy saw that and thought it was a car alarm, thought he had stole that vehicle, pulled him over. His ex-wife had not sent him the papers to pay his tags in his car and not sent him the paper because when he bought that car the title went to his old house and his wife had gotten rid of that, so that the name of that car was still in the car lot. So he tried to explain to that deputy no, I own this car, I'm on my way to a fire. No, no, no, you're not locked him up and took him to the detention center. So that was the best one. And that poor sheriff's deputy I think he caught a lot of crap over that fire right there yeah, yeah, yeah good faith, yeah, good faith.
Speaker 1:So I'm sure he wouldn't be the first, he wouldn't be the first officer to arrest or threaten to arrest a firefighter.
Speaker 5:Yeah, yeah, was that jason jason?
Speaker 3:yeah, oh, yeah, yeah he's done it multiple times, it wasn't just a one-time thing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, he fought more fire than anybody.
Speaker 4:Yeah, but he didn't have nothing for them if, if he was dressed in gray, he didn't want nobody beating him to the scene, so that's hilarious I think drew uh threatened to arrest larry once scene yeah, I mean we could sit here and I mean just looking back on all the good stuff. That that's half the fun of the job is the stories. Well, we had a. I now think of it. We had a guy we got called to a guy down in a yard in Jefferson County out by the river. If you ever go to Mike Lenning's, the fish place out there, it's out there.
Speaker 4:So we get out there and there's three or four couples arguing in the front yard and there's an old man just not breathing in the middle of the yard and they're arguing, bickering, complaining and everything back and forth, back and forth, and we're like what happened?
Speaker 4:And they just stopped yard and they're arguing, bicker and complaining and everything back and forth, back forth and we're like what happened? And they just stopped. They're like we don't know and they went back to arguing. So we started working this guy, get him in the back of an ambulance. We had to take him. I think at that time it was like st Mary's, I think it's like st Joe's South or something now and when getting we get him in the ambulance. We're driving, driving and there's a car bumper to bumper and we can't stop, if not they'll rear-end us. We end up shocking him in the back of the ambulance. A .38 revolver falls out of his pocket and it was a domestic argument on who was going to get the house when he died and he ended up dying in the yard over the argument.
Speaker 2:They distressed him out so much he had a had a heart attack and died right there.
Speaker 5:I want to think I got that settled did he sign the will?
Speaker 1:yeah?
Speaker 4:yeah, I mean you could. You could go on and on, but that's what's one of the best parts of this whole job, whether it be law enforcement, ems, fire, it's the stories. That, yes, and that's why we're doing this. Yeah, so we don't forget it, don't forget it, because you know it's not.
Speaker 2:This is much. You know. I've said this every time. It's therapy for me. It's getting together with friends that I haven't. We don't get to hang out as much as we used to. Yeah, and telling these old stories A lot of I haven't heard because I've not worked with you guys, like I have some of the PD guys, so I'm like this is crazy, but other people need to hear this stuff too, just to put the human side of who we are and what we've done, because a lot of people I don't know how many times they're like oh I never knew what you looked like, right, unless you've got a uniform on or something.
Speaker 5:However, if you listen to us tell all these stories, they may be like. I don't know that. I want to call these guys anymore.
Speaker 3:I've had people say I didn't recognize you with clothes on Wait a minute.
Speaker 1:Without a uniform, they'll say.
Speaker 3:I'm like, okay, let's make that clear.
Speaker 2:That's so crazy clear.
Speaker 3:One of the funny ones that I remember from the county fire department days, when it was on simple street, you know, in the McLean building, is when they paged druthers out on fire. Oh, man, that was. And me and a couple of the guys were sitting on the front bumper of the truck, had the bay door up and stuff, you know. When the tone went off and so Wilson Rollins was chief then and he goes on scene smoke showing. Well, I yelled these two guys. I said get in the truck. They said what we're doing?
Speaker 3:I said we're going for driver's training right now because, I mean, it's a city fire, yeah, we're the county fire. So so we get out, go straight up the hill, make make a right turn into Carnaby Square there and there's Wilson waving us in. I'm like, oh, looks like they want help from us, since we're here in a fire truck. So we got to pull in and actually drag a line in and start fighting fire, you know, without being requested, so to speak. But that was kind of my mindset was okay, it's time for driver's train, let's let's get up here, did.
Speaker 2:It did gosh the only druthers left in this world that I know of is in Campbellsville.
Speaker 4:Yes, go down south somewhere.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's that was just a bathroom fire. We, this one, got knocked out.
Speaker 2:It reopened so I've heard about some shenanigans that happened at druthers back in the day from people that used to work there. Yes, I reckon it was a wild place, a good place to work, wow. But yeah, I think, uh, man, some of some of these places, like my neighbor's house catches on fire and I got accused of that one man it's fascinating to sit there and be like the destruction that's happening and people are running in there Like that is dangerous stuff and I guess the big comparison I have as far as firefighting versus law enforcement, law enforcement is a lot more uncontrolled because I mean like working 75, I mean we've stopped people
Speaker 3:with bloody knives in the trunk that have killed and stolen a car in North Carolina that wasn't even reported stolen yet. I mean that was foiled here in London. But if the building's on fire and it's really on fire we may take a defensive stance and stay out in the yard and spray water until it goes out, save the foundation, but it can be uncontrolled. But I feel like that if you look at it, size it up and stuff, you can make better educated decisions on what you're doing.
Speaker 5:You know what you're getting into A fire is a fire.
Speaker 3:Fire chemistry is the same. It's going to do pretty much the same thing.
Speaker 5:You don't have a female in a domestic, that is now the aggressor because you're taking baby daddy to jail.
Speaker 2:There was some kind of electric. There was smoke coming out. It was over a building over there around. I can't remember. It was in Carnaby Square, behind where Brothers was and that little that section that strip mall there and night shift. I went over there, I was the first one there and I'm like it was a plug, that was. You know, something was something was hot over there and I'm like I'm getting ready fire department, don't you bust that. What's going?
Speaker 2:on don't you give it no air. I was like, oh, they probably blow me up in the cemetery but you know that that. But experience and knowing what that's, what's going on, that's the key to that where I'm like, hey, there's a fire, I a fire. I need to put that out. I'm sure I have my fire extinguisher out, yes, ready.
Speaker 1:It's like I'm ready, guys. Tactical approach.
Speaker 2:We're good with fire extinguishers.
Speaker 5:Don't forget to keep six feet of separation.
Speaker 2:Yes, I've seen I used to to when I was in the Marines. They had that aircraft fire and rescue guys worked. You know, I'd see them up at the PX or out at Chow Hall or something and they were the best softball players in the world because all they did was play softball, that's right and they would come in with their boots already unlaced and look like well. I sure should have tried harder.
Speaker 3:When I started at Lexington, you know, at the airport I'm like because we're out there with the ARF trucks working the joystick, you know the turning on the roof and stuff Fans blowing on you, air conditioned in the cab I'm like man. I said this is what firefighting's all about. I said that whole crawling around on your hands and knees in the ashes, that's the thunder, all you know. That's silly. Yeah, sitting in the AC with the fan while you blow.
Speaker 5:This is the way to go. They have to use the foam and stuff from there to you know you get the foam and everything, so life's good.
Speaker 2:That was the first place I ever heard had fire and policing together. Now there's towns and stuff.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that have that used to have public safety officers that carried fire gear in the trunks of the police cars and stuff and and I would hate to do it in a city or county environment- there's like little island towns and stuff off the coast and stuff that do that yeah, it would be cool, though, to be cross trained.
Speaker 5:I'm not saying that I want to do it, but to be trained to do it. That would be pretty cool.
Speaker 3:To know how to do it and not ever have to do it, that would be pretty cool To know how to do it and not ever have to be in the academy Goes back to those academy classes. You can't ever have enough academies, that's right.
Speaker 2:Maybe one day I'll go be a volunteer.
Speaker 5:Just be a wealth of useless information.
Speaker 2:I talked about this on the podcast. I know exactly what to do Exactly.
Speaker 1:I got this.
Speaker 4:I tell you, another fire. That must have been funny when we were there. The log cabin fire across from, uh, gondoliers. Well, that was right in the middle of haunted house, so they shut haunted house down. So it must have been funny to watch a bunch of clowns and ghosts and all that walking in there. Yeah, and the bad part about it is I think they left like they shut everything down the haunted house, lights, everything and there was like six people in there stuck in there could you imagine, they're still in there, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah and the night that the haunted house caught on fire.
Speaker 4:That was another I didn't know yeah, oh yeah, yeah, it caught on fire I know that slide at the haunted house.
Speaker 2:My daughter had some complaints on that.
Speaker 3:That was there. Come off, that sucker. She said I have to bring my cats. That's the Chanel Reams department.
Speaker 1:You have to file a complaint with her. Yeah that's how the daughter of mine.
Speaker 4:That one must have been a funny thing to watch us walk in there with face paint and everything else.
Speaker 5:Yeah, I never thought about that. But yeah, if you all had to respond to something while that was going on, oh, yeah, he got shut down.
Speaker 3:See the houseboat factory. That's where the college is now. When it burned it was on Halloween and I was with Bush Fire Department back then and put on a set of their proximity gear. So it's the aluminum covered gear you know. So we've got the fire knocked down and everything sitting there joking and smoking at the end, you know, and they're like what the world are? You wearing Fuzz? I said, listen, I'm the only original one here on Halloween, because the rest of you dressed up as firemen.
Speaker 1:I said I'm dressed up as a tin man.
Speaker 5:You're actually looking like a baked potato.
Speaker 3:Y'all copied each other. I don't know what you're thinking on this costume party, that's awesome Fire, fire's.
Speaker 2:The. You guys are always. It don't matter how good we do. If police do something and you know this from coming that side there's always some kind of complaint or something. Yeah, you guys can burn it to the ground. What was y'all?
Speaker 4:doing I tried.
Speaker 5:Thanks for trying.
Speaker 4:You really tried hard. I've never seen it.
Speaker 2:I mean, and we still joke. But here comes the heroes guys.
Speaker 5:It's just jealousy, it's 100% jealousy. I can't tell you how many videos I've been sent from Dylan Blair of him recording a fire truck going by and yelling get them brothers.
Speaker 3:which Dylan Blair he'd come out of the car seat as a firefighter with his dad.
Speaker 2:I don't, it's the exact opposite. We don't get the get them brothers, it's more the. If you brothers, it happens, we do.
Speaker 4:I don't know. There's some of those hot days when you're standing in that turnout gear and the police are sitting there in short-sleeved shirts and you know, pants, and you're like maybe I might try that job.
Speaker 5:If you're on blacktoptop, though, our feet were on fire.
Speaker 1:Those course rams oh gosh, I would just go sit in my car well, chance mcpeak, he would ride with me every once and again.
Speaker 3:You know, yeah, and it's july, like july 4th weekend or something, and he's a we up. He's going to ride Saturday night or whatever.
Speaker 3:He grew up in it too, man, and he was an explorer, I mean at the US, and all that. So I mean he's been exposed his entire life. I'm like, well, bring a jacket. He's like it's July 4th. I said I don't care, I don't want to listen to you whine all night. Bring a jacket. And so he gets in the car. You know, and because of my ac, it had to be on 110 oh yeah, because you never pull off with the vest.
Speaker 3:I mean, there just ain't enough heat comes off of it and there's so many little v power, j hose or whatever I'm like man that would have been so nice to have back in the day of them.
Speaker 5:So many times you can't cool off, you can't warm up with them and they stink so bad, oh yeah there's a unique odor, the only other place you can get that smell is at a football locker, it's just when we finally went to Outer Cares, I was like, oh, thank god because you could get a breeze yeah.
Speaker 2:I don't know, fire guys heroes it's a lot of fun if I volunteer, I'm going to volunteer up at Danville.
Speaker 3:They even have that they may start a program or something just for you a ride along, poor little fellow.
Speaker 2:They may start a program or something Just for me, just for you, a ride along, just like that poor little fellow.
Speaker 1:He don't know nothing. It's funny.
Speaker 3:We know some people up there, we'll throw in a word for you.
Speaker 1:We'll get you in, yeah.
Speaker 2:I need to go back and visit. I got to go talk to Andy. I got to go. Yeah, how much, hey, how much. You think you're got me some other fire guys up there would talk to us, to you, I'm sure oh god, oh yeah.
Speaker 3:Well, you know firefighters, you know how they are yeah, I mean it's well, we need to go to a fire within five seconds of the conversation yeah, but we need to do this at a firehouse because they will feed us really well, you won't be involved.
Speaker 2:I was catching all my all my firefighting stuff that's coming from you guys from a distance and like, hey, you're awesome. And I've been watching Tacoma FD on Netflix and I'm like that's exactly, it's a little bit more. I was telling my son that's exactly, it's a little bit more, but that's it. I was telling my son that's exactly how Firehouse got up, the shenanigans and the pranking. I said, yeah, of course they go over the top on some stuff. It'd be funny. I was like that's it, they've nailed that. I'm like eh.
Speaker 3:I'm a regular watcher of the Tacoma FD it's, it's not, it's not.
Speaker 2:Fire and police are very similar when it comes to the pranks and the goofiness that we well, it's the same type of personalities.
Speaker 5:Yeah, it's an alpha person to be an emergency responder yeah, you're used to taking control of a scene and that whole saying of work hard, play harder is definitely true, I agree.
Speaker 4:Now we have a very interesting gentleman we could probably send your way. He is a fireman and he's also planning a run for governor We'll be there, we could probably get him to come down here and talk to you Now we're coming up. He is a fireman and he's also planning a run for governor Huh.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we'll be there. We can probably get him to come down here and talk to you. No, we're coming up. Okay, so the plan is I'd love to go up there, I want to do Todd and I want to do Andy and I want to do Merle from the police department. Yeah, I want to come in the firehouse and ask. Jill. Yeah, and and just see what's going on?
Speaker 4:We can do a little roundtable discussion. That'd be fun. We can do it. Yeah, definitely we can get you some good people, absolutely.
Speaker 2:Very entertaining stories. Y'all got anything else, or we're going to cut her down Because I don't know how long we're supposed to go.
Speaker 5:We just wing it at this point. We're having fun.
Speaker 4:Surely you've got enough to fill a block. We were a two-part story, that's all you know. We were two parts, mm-hmm, yeah, okay, yeah, this is fun.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, we got a surprise last week when Joey came in, when Jake came in, he was like oh yeah yeah, somebody had to keep joey restrained, so I mentioned green, but I didn't know if you would or not, so it's good, I'm glad yeah, I'm glad again this is not this is awesome.
Speaker 5:I've enjoyed it.
Speaker 2:Much respect to you guys, yeah yeah, and I'm sorry about your next shift because it's gonna be it's gonna be bad.
Speaker 5:What time do y'all start?
Speaker 1:7 in the morning about 7.30.
Speaker 2:I'll call and say it's awful quiet use that Q word they ain't heard nothing from them it's awful quiet out there every old building of this, danville's maybe the oldest, I don't know, I don't think it's the oldest town in London, but it's up there and everything's you know, because I look at real estate up there there's a lot of historic Everything's like built in 1814.
Speaker 4:Pre-Civil War.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So I mean I'm like that's awesome, it's a very good town. Y'all are blessed to be there, for sure.
Speaker 3:It's definitely a cool little city. I mean, the people are great. Yeah, it's a nice place to be they are truly pro-fire and pro-police very much.
Speaker 2:That's what I appreciated about it so much. They really have your back up there.
Speaker 5:Yeah.
Speaker 4:We'll end it there. It's been fun Guys. Thank you all.
Speaker 5:Thank you guys, catch us on the next one you.