Peanut Butter, Rockets, and Jail Pockets

We sit down with combat medic and career paramedic Chris Carlisle to trace his path from Iraq and Afghanistan to a fire department EMS job he plans to retire from. Along the way, we talk blast injury reality, VA fights, dark humor, and the calls that stick with you long after the shift ends.

Transcript

Welcome And Meet Chris

SPEAKER_03 0:34

Alright, guys, welcome back to another episode. Got me and T Dot here, and we've got a special guest for you today. We've got Chris Carlisle with us.

SPEAKER_00 0:44

Hey Chris. Welcome.

SPEAKER_03 0:47

I guess they can't see me wave.

SPEAKER_00 0:48

So we got a we've went uh we're road tripping finally. We made it all the way to Danville. We've met halfway. Yeah. So we're here.

SPEAKER_03 0:58

Um got up with Chris on our on our TikTok page. He uh he showed some interest on being on, and and here we are. He's got a uh a long, long list on his career, a lot of things that I'm interested to talk about. Sure. Uh military, paramedic. He's currently working for a fire department as a paradigm paramedic. Um there's one thing I want to get to you mentioned in your bio, and it's it's a story I've got to hear, but he said he had a violent disagreement with Iraq when he was over in was it Afghanistan? Yeah, the very violent disagreement that I lost.

SPEAKER_00 1:32

So that's so we'll we'll get into that. We'll get into that. That'd be fun. We're we're uh we're glad you're here with us, and and we try to keep it, you know, chill so that way uh we don't want you to get nervous at all, and because I get nervous every time they stupid things on us. And you would think I don't, but you can tell because I talk too much. So uh yeah, we're glad to have you. Um tell us about where where you're from, how how did uh how did uh you get into the military first and then also just your who you are?

From College To Combat Medic

SPEAKER_01 2:08

Well, um I was born and raised right outside of San Francisco. Um left there during the 08 surge. I I tried the whole college thing, went to the University of San Francisco, made it all of a semester for realized how much I hated it. Um we see you there. Walked into the recruiting office, and uh a couple months later I was out in Oklahoma for basic. I was a combat medic, went to uh did basic at Fort Stewart, and then went down to Fort Sam for all that training and uh initially started out in the reserves. So I finished all my training, went home, did one drill with the reserve unit, went hell no. Dropped paperwork, went active duty, and then about eight months later I was in Iraq. Um was stationed down at Fort Stewart, did my entire seven years there, never left the black hole. One of my platoon sergeant was uh he went from E1 to E7 there. They just oh wow, they just keep you there. They don't let you off.

SPEAKER_00 3:00

It is. It's and you would think it's one of the greatest places. I mean, it's pretty, it's right outside Savannah, and you know, there are what lots of 30 minutes, 45 minutes from Savannah and about 45 minutes, and you got about an hour, hour and a half to go to Tybee Island. Yeah, Tybee's just off the so it's it's where it's at.

SPEAKER_01 3:17

You're close to that low country, and oh yeah, no, we had a great time, lots of lots of hunting, lots of fishing, had a lot of great times that I don't remember on River Street, winter beach a lot. Yeah, to wait for that skin cancer diagnosis fall up.

SPEAKER_00 3:30

Yeah, that it's pretty down there. I loved it. So I'll tell you this. I I was you know, I was I was in the Marines and then I joined the National Guard again. I should have just gone back active, but I was needing insurance and things like that when I got out, and just not really sure what I wanted to be when I grew up. So um still not sure. No, I'm still searching, and and I'll be 50 in a couple weeks, and that's weird. But so one of our guard, our first guard, like you know, your AT, we went down our annual training, we went to Fort Stewart, stayed at those those World War II. It was very shitty. You know what I'm talking about next to that big giant parade deck, that big field, the movie theaters, or not the movie, but the bowling alleys right up there behind it, you know.

SPEAKER_01 4:19

You know exactly where you're talking about. Yep.

SPEAKER_00 4:21

Um, I mean, an absolute just that's it. It's it's horrible. What ye what year was that? Uh that was in 2001. It was right before 9-11. So I don't even know if those buildings are still there.

SPEAKER_01 4:36

That was uh well, five 500 block. I think it was I think so. So that became that actually became my battalion's footprint.

SPEAKER_00 4:44

Are all those old barracks gone?

SPEAKER_01 4:46

Are they they're la I mean I haven't been there in a long time, but they were still there last I'd looked. So my that was my battalion's barracks area, that was my battalion's company area, and then we went to Iraq, and while we were in Iraq, they built the whole compound for our um our brigade because we're the only light infantry brigade for the division. Everyone else was mechanized. Right, right. Um light infantry sucks, don't recommend it. Yeah. Um and so when we came back to my rack, we got to move into our compound, and that was right off of 144. As soon as you go out the back gate, hook a right, and it's a compound over there on your left. All brand new. That was awesome. Then we went to Afghanistan, and shortly after that I got back. Or I ended up getting out two years, a year and a half year later. Um and I recently I heard that they got kicked out of that compound and moved back to main post, and someone else took that area over, unfortunately.

SPEAKER_00 5:35

But it it was uh it's a big area. I mean, like there was a massive like PT field in between. You know what I'm talking about?

SPEAKER_01 5:43

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 5:44

We see all the like the just uh just crazy stuff going on over there, rotter running and stuff. And I was uh so we was practicing we the second time I went was after uh 9-11. We were heading our our battalion was heading over to um Belgium and Germany and just relieving some uh MPs and and even though it was infantry, we was doing gate guards to relieve them to to get ready to go to wherever, you know. This is before really that everybody went to Afghanistan. They were still using you know soft units over there and the big army hadn't went, you know, this is still different. And um actually we went over there to add security because most of the uh MPs and people were still stuck in like still fighting in Bosnia and Serbia stuff. I mean, that's how I mean this is where we are, and uh you know, there was still stuff conflicts going on, but nobody you know everybody kind of forgot about that, but you know, we still have folks deployed over there doing things like that. So we were leaving the building up, you know, just in case um any terrorists or anything happened, hit those baits. Now we went over to but the second time we went was right after I'm gonna say January of 2022 to Fort Stewart. Went back down there. And um I was just noticing, you know, like different stuff down there. The first time we went, we went in the field, we see all these different wild animals. There was this ring tailed looking I don't know what it was. They start it looked like Crash Bandicoot, the bandicoot on there, and and just different alligators everywhere. It was the scariest field. Like we we stayed in the barracks and then we went to the field, and I was begging to go back in the nasty tet Tetanus barracks where you sit down in poo and somebody's brushing their teeth right in front of you, barest right in front of you. You're like, oh my god, it's like a present. Yeah, it was. It was a lot like it. But I remember thinking, what if I joined here? I should have ran to the Coast Guard or something.

SPEAKER_01 7:58

This was a mistake.

SPEAKER_00 8:00

But it was uh we you know it was it was just it's beautiful, but it was like the accommodations for the guard and the reserves was horrible.

SPEAKER_01 8:11

They didn't care. Yeah, I think they still house them in those horrid barracks over there. It's interesting. That's uh yeah, that that's all tetanus and black mold. So yes. Don't worry about that.

SPEAKER_00 8:21

That's explained a lot of things.

SPEAKER_01 8:22

Not service connected, don't worry. Definitely try it. Tang it.

SPEAKER_00 8:28

I'm still working on stuff. Um so you went, you were there, and you went to Afghanistan with with

Iraq In Ramadi And Fallujah

SPEAKER_00 8:36

who?

SPEAKER_01 8:36

What so I was in uh 4th Brigade, 3rd Battalion, 15th Infantry. 15th Infantry. I was a combat medic. I went to Iraq as a line medic, so I was in a platoon, I was the medic for a platoon, so I had about 40 dudes that I was responsible for. Went to Iraq. Um we were at uh Ramadi going back and forth between Ramadi and Fallujah, doing everything from route clearance to just picking fights. Patrols through the desert, convoy securities, route clearance, the you know, a little bit of everything, Jack and Ball Tradesmaster and none. Um Iraq sucks. 140 degrees or something in the sunlight, all sorts of fantastic. The wind blows, it feels like he just took a hairdryer and just packed it with like sand and then turned it on full blast right in your face. Oh yeah. Fantastic. Go touch your weapon, your weapon's black, so you go touch your weapon without gloves, burn the shit out of your hands. Go.

SPEAKER_03 9:24

Um now had Iraq calmed down a little when you all got over there.

SPEAKER_01 9:28

Yeah, uh so Iraq and or um Ramadi and Fallujah weren't like they were when the Marines were there back in the day. You still a little sporty.

SPEAKER_00 9:37

Yeah, like oh seven, oh eight. Uh oh eight, oh nine, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 9:41

Still not happy you were there.

SPEAKER_00 9:42

And you were you were there when? I was there nine and ten. Okay. So they all that big push and kind of it was tail end of the surge.

SPEAKER_01 9:51

It's horribly dangerous, though. Not a great place. I don't recommend it. The uh, you know, night sky's beautiful, uh, especially in our nods, and the locals kind of suck.

SPEAKER_00 10:00

Yeah. We're not real, they're not friendly. They're not gonna invite you in for dinner, huh? It's like, hey, we gotta get ideas.

SPEAKER_01 10:08

And if they do, you might not want to go. You might not want to. I mean, the food was great. You just gotta be careful.

SPEAKER_00 10:13

Um now was Ramadi. Is that where like uh lone or not lone survivor? The shoot the sniper one. Uh uh Chris Cowell. That was that was where they were.

SPEAKER_01 10:24

I read his book uh because he was at Ramadi. And then, you know, reading after I read his book and look back, I'm like, holy shit, he's talking about that glass factory. That's right there. Yeah. All the differ the different bigger landmarks he was talking about. Um, the provincial government building and all that. We had to make runs into Ramadi proper to go to occasionally. Um had a car bomb go off right outside there one day, and that was wild.

SPEAKER_04 10:49

Gosh.

SPEAKER_01 10:50

Um we we only did about six, seven months in that area, and then um my company got moved to Al-Assad, went to Al-Assad Air Base, and we were training in the Iraqi army, and that went about as well as you expect. And as you can see, that went great because they're, you know, ran so fast that they ran out of their damn boots trying to get away. Um and then we left I think that was some summer of 2010. We came home, we were done.

Afghanistan And The Rocket Blast

SPEAKER_01 11:22

Uh stayed in the States till the beginning of 13, and then we went to RC East in Afghanistan right off of uh Highway 1. And uh our company, all the companies in my battalion got put on combat outposts. So I spent of the nine, 10 months that we were there, I spent seven or eight of them on the side of an outpost or on the side of a hill kind of thing. You can brush your teeth every other day, you can shave once a week, don't really have showers, kind of thing, clothes stand up by themselves. Yeah. Um after a while, they get that ammonia smell too. Pneumonia smell, they're crunchy, you're like, This ain't this ain't right. Um then we were there and we closed our outpost down, turned it over to the Afghans, and then went to Fob Airborne and finished out the rest of the deployment, and then came home. And about a year and a half later, I ended up getting out. I was I was done.

SPEAKER_00 12:19

Can't say that I blame you. So tell us about the if you can. Let's hear about this let's hear about this close encounter.

SPEAKER_01 12:28

So um spring of 2013, probably about I think it was April or so, uh, we went on an extended mission out to the Chalk Valley. Not a great place. It was at the time one of the most dangerous places in the world. Um we had to go out there because a soft unit was with an Afghan army unit, and the soft unit was pulling out, and they needed they needed help getting all their equipment out. So they sent our company out there with some EOD guys. It took us like 16 hours to get into this valley. So you had it fly. I mean, y'all convoyed in. Yeah, we had a convoy in and we we had to fight our way the entire way in. Um, we got there and they had to drop us more ammunition. That's how much we burned through getting in. We get there some god-awful hour, everybody beds down. Um and then the next morning, you know, we're getting ready to, everyone's they're all loading the soft guys are all loading up all their equipment, and we're getting ready to head on out. So I didn't have any gear, no one had any gear on at this, you know, yet. Got my rifle on my back, whole nine yards, and I I go, I'm like, all right, I'm gonna go, I'm gonna go take a leak before we start this thing back off and head on out. Yeah. Another another 14, 16 hours fighting our way back out. Yeah. And I'm standing there in front of one of the lead vehicles, and uh like, all right, I gotta take a leak. Start peeing on the tire. And I the next thing I know, they're just a loud, a loud bang. I felt some burn into my arm, and the next thing I know, I'm in the back of a truck. Don't remember really anything past that. Or during during that time frame there. And um on my back in one of the trucks, and one of my guys is sitting there shaking me, Doc, Doc, Doc, you good? You alright, man? He's like ripping out a tourniquet to throw it up on my arm. And uh he's like, I'm I'm good, I'm good, I'm good. And I'm roll over and I throw up. I'm really I'm really dizzy. Look down, make sure everything was still there. Um, because that was in my hand at the time. Had to make sure that the twig and berries were still intact. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 14:44

That would have been just kill me.

SPEAKER_05 14:47

I'm disrespectful.

SPEAKER_01 14:48

Can't even let a man put his junk before you hit him with a rocket. I mean, it's a pee. I was not not happy. Uh so I'm laying there just feeling like shit. And I'm laying there looking up through the gunner's hatch. I just hear boom, boom, boom, boom, and I see this AC-130 kind of circling around, and it is just laying hate for where this rocket came from. Like, oh well, at least I got the fucker that launched it and then rolled over and threw up again. I felt like crap. Um didn't didn't get evacuated or anything, and I just had I'd gotten peppered by some shrapnel. So what the only reason that it didn't kill me, it for it hit from like here to that chair. The only reason it didn't kill me. So I'm well within that lethal radius of that thing, um, is it hit in their trash pit. So it hit in in the pit itself. So it took most of the explosion, it threw most of the shrapnel up and out, and I just got hit by a bunch of tiny little slivers like that long. It up through my bicep and into my shoulder. Wasn't that bad. Um never got a purple heart, never got anything for it. This kind of dealt with it, and for years afterwards, I was picking out little tiny slivers of metal. Yeah, good great

VA Battles TBI And Hearing Loss

SPEAKER_01 16:02

times. Um why wouldn't it?

SPEAKER_00 16:06

No write-up for that?

SPEAKER_01 16:07

No, the PA that uh got sent out to our outpost, he he hated me and I hated him. So the paperwork he put on there, you know, you know, traumatic brain injury, blast injury, didn't mention shit about the shrapnel, didn't mention anything else. He, even though he gave me a tetanus shot, I, you know, didn't mention, didn't even document the tetanus shot in my medical record. You month so I got fucked out of a purple heart. Um but then I look back at all of our other guys that got messed up and did get purple hearts. I'm like, I'm all right, you know, that's fine. Maybe I didn't I didn't really earn that. That seemed to be a common practice then. Yeah, I'm like, yeah, yeah. Didn't get evacuated and had to fight our way back out with a brain injury, dizzy, throwing up every couple hours, like shit. Had to wear sunglasses, staring at a computer for the next like two weeks. Nah, it's all sorts of fun. Now I get uh get migraines, get two, three migraines a month at least. Um that that's that residual effect from the blast injury. It took years for the VA to finally admit, like, okay, you know what, you're you're right. Um, you did get blown up. You do have a brain injury, and uh you did have shrapnel in your arm. So I'm like, cool. Am I gonna get my purple heart? Like, no, you got to petition Congress for that. I'm like, oh, okay, so that's never gonna happen. All right, I'm just gonna write that one off. I thought about trying to get one from like a um a surplus store and stick it in my shadow box and then put like an asterisk next to it in the box. Listen, I did get blown up, I swear. But uh the VA finally a couple months ago finally admitted up up my disability rating and everything and said, you know, you're right.

SPEAKER_00 17:43

Um sorry you had to fight us for 10 years for this, but I fought with them for, you know, no, they're it's it's tough. And I I don't understand sometimes why. Yeah, man, I'm hurt. Um I didn't I didn't go into the military with ringing in my ears and headaches now and shoulders I can't, you know, put my hand, you know. That and it's it's just I promise you. But you it wouldn't we don't say nothing in it, but you know, it just wasn't you just didn't go to sit call. No, it was it was I mean you were a doc and you didn't go to sit called.

SPEAKER_01 18:19

I'm the medic. I can't I'm not supposed to I gotta take care of guys, and if they see me being a little girl about something, then then they're gonna start judging me, and I can't have that.

SPEAKER_00 18:27

So it's just it wasn't you were f is frowned upon to go see the medicine. Well, yeah, you don't want to be a you don't want to be that guy exactly the the always getting the chit or whatever they y'all caught it and the profiles and everything profiles and stuff.

SPEAKER_03 18:42

I mean I knew guys that would you don't want to be a sick bay commando.

SPEAKER_00 18:46

No, no. I knew them, and they probably got 100% disability now, but stupid things.

SPEAKER_01 18:53

I sprained my ankle once.

SPEAKER_03 18:55

You would think that you know the VA would be more inclined to take care of its people.

SPEAKER_00 19:04

I've been going here lately. I've started going back to them for for stuff, and I've finally I found a doctor I like there. And um so that's that's helped. Uh just I just use it more for physicals, stuff like that.

SPEAKER_03 19:22

They did hook you up with some good hearing aids at least. I did and that's I did get good hearing aids, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:25

And I've I'm ticked with that. I'm I'm I might be listening to music right now, you just never know. They're awesome.

SPEAKER_01 19:32

Sitting there taking phone calls, listening to music. No, the the hearing aids are great. I am terrible, I never wear mine. I wore mine, I I did wear it for a while, and then the whole COVID thing happened and having to wear over-the-ear hearing aids and then a mask and then glasses. I'd go take the mask off and fling a hearing aid across the room. And oh yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:48

They dig into my ear, especially when I wear a hat. They'll dig right there and this it gets sore. It but I'm kind of used to it now. I'm like, it's my own little crease I've got in it now. But what I did find that I do like about these over, you know, is like they were like, if you lose them, you get like one time and they replace them every five years. I'm like, oh my gosh, because you can't buy these. And I mean, I'd like to get $10,000 if you get the high what I've got in my ears right now, if I went to the like um wherever, these would be $8,000 for this stuff. So I I I appreciate that side of it because um I I didn't mean to I didn't mean to go deaf. I didn't want to love to be able to hear. So it's it's part of it.

SPEAKER_01 20:36

Those those hearing aids, they're they're pretty awesome. But after COVID, I tried wearing them again and I realized like, damn, y'all y'all loud. Yeah, I don't stop wearing them.

SPEAKER_00 20:45

I wouldn't, if it was just the deafness, I wouldn't even wear them. But they really helped me with the ringing. They do help drown it out. Yeah, that was really nice. That's what drives me crazy, is the is I just can't hear. Okay, but that ringing, that constant. I'm like, oh, just enough. Come on.

SPEAKER_01 21:06

I've got the ring in, and then I'm almost totally deaf in my right ear now. So it's my the the girl I'm seeing now, and then uh my ex-wife and everything, you know, that they'll get frustrated with me. Like, I I've been talking to you the last five minutes. You didn't hear anything? Hmm. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 21:20

What I well, yeah, you know, part of that's selective just from us being then, but we can't say that.

SPEAKER_00 21:27

Yeah. I think I just I I kind of get tired of just always going, hmm? What?

SPEAKER_03 21:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:34

And I'm like, I'm I'm, you know, and I'm it's just changed a lot as it as my hearing's gotten a little worse and it's frustrating for people. And now I see my son or my daughter is just shaking their head that me like, hmm, he didn't hear wherever we said.

SPEAKER_01 21:49

And I'm like, not a not a damn thing. TV's up loud, I'm sure my uh neighbors in my apartment

Civilian Reset Pilot Dream To EMS

SPEAKER_01 21:55

don't appreciate that.

SPEAKER_00 21:55

But so you got out of you got out in what year? Fifteen.

SPEAKER_01 22:00

15 and then you started in to so um I got I when I was in the military I got married to a military police officer um and we moved from Stewart to Lubbock, Texas, where she was from, where her parents are at. You know, she ended up going to Texas Tech and did phenomenal there. I'm very proud of her still. And then uh I ended up going following in the footsteps of my dad. My dad's a paramedic fireman, and he's been a paramedic since I was like two. Um my mother was um an LPN, and then she I think she ended up getting her RN and everything. So I grew up around the medical field, and then dad became a fireman, I think, when I was like five. So I grew up around ambulances. I grew up at, you know, going to the firehouse and messing around with the fire engines. So that wasn't my first choice, though. I I uh I want I really wanted to be a pilot. My grandfather flew F8 Crusaders off the Iriscony during Vietnam. Dang, yeah, right. That's awesome. So I grew up on his knee, him telling me stories and you know, you know, this is how you fly, and him showing me, you know, whole whole control services, like this is what this does, this is how you read this, this is what that does. Like, oh, that's awesome. So I I wanted to be growing up, I really wanted to be a pilot. And um when I got out, I tried to go get tried to go follow that path initially.

SPEAKER_05 23:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:18

Tried to go get, you know, finished ground school, um, and then had to go get my class one medical because I wanted to go into commercial aviation. And I walked in there and they're like, well, you put on here that you you have a brain injury and that you you take some depression meds and uh you had a loss of consciousness with that and you collect disability, and like we can't approve you. You can't you can't fly any aircraft that requires a medical clearance. Like you can go fly a light ex uh light sport aircraft, experimental stuff, because that requires a driver's license, and you can fly drones. Have a nice day.

SPEAKER_05 23:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:53

So that dream shot down and died in that office. Um I was trying to figure out what to do. Really, you know, like I still really liked the medical field, so I started doing like interfacility transports and uh got hired on at the Lubbock County Detention Center and they're medical doing their medical stuff in their in their clinics, and that was like, all right, this is this is what I need to do. I I still really enjoy the medical field. So I went and got my advanced EMT and then went to Fire Academy and then got my paramedic. Um and I did I did the whole fire service thing for about five years, but I ended up having to walk away from it because I destroyed my back in the military again, light infantry, don't recommend it. Shit's heavy. Um, about it, apparently.

SPEAKER_00 24:32

No, no, not a damn thing, man. So mechanized means you put it on a home vehicle truck and you and you're riding. And I didn't the our quick story. I'm gonna go backwards. So I just had joined the guard and I came out of I was a combat engineer battalion in the Marines. And we we did a monthly 15 to 20 mile hump. Right. Just our battalion commander loved it. And he said that's gonna be our you know, our battalion PT is gonna be a rug, mar, you know, hump for us, what we call them. And um I was a 240 golf A gunner, you know, and I had you know, all the so I get to the guard and we're getting ready to go to this AT, the first one down there at Stewart, and they're talking about this 20-click road march. Oh, it's sand too. That's even better. And we but the good news, I was looking around. I looked at uh I looked at some buddies of mine that were in the Marines that he was like, We're on tracks, man. We're good. I was like, I said, I didn't get into this to go just humping again, rucking again. And uh he said, Well, we're on track, they just caught that. I was like, road marches mean road marching. So it freaked me out. I was like, I'm not I'm not doing that. I will, I will quit. I swear I'll quit.

SPEAKER_01 25:58

You start looking at it, adding up the weight, like your your kit, just you know, without ammunition, without water, without batteries, without night vision, you know, you're looking at it, you know, 30 to 40 pounds, and then you start adding ammunition. You know, I I carried seven bags in Iraq and then 10 in Afghanistan. Then you got your first aid kit, you got you know, your camel bag full of water, you got some extra batteries, you got you know, whatever else you shoved in your pockets. Um then your bag. Yeah, then you get your rucksack, which is you know, you whatever it needs to be. And you know, unless you're back in garrison doing ruck marches and stuff, then you know say it needs to be at least 30 pounds and they'll weigh every buns for the guts, or it needs to be at least 50 pounds.

SPEAKER_05 26:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 26:35

So I gotta carry that, and then I gotta carry the aid bag, which depending on which bag I got is gonna be anywhere between 30 and 50 pounds, depending on which big sack of goodies I grab to take with me. Um, and then you go for a nice long walk. And uh then they get shocked when your back's destroyed. It's great.

SPEAKER_00 26:51

Yep. It's funny. Uh you're like, hmm, why why does it hurt here? Why is my hips? Why am I hurting in my upper back and neck? Why is it oh you put all that stuff you're you're walking like this with a gun, you know, a gun or or a or the tripod trying to figure out how to carry that stuff. It just breaks you down. And it's but then you know, but so you're so you went to the fire service, back just was I did it, did it for five years, and yeah, I loved it.

SPEAKER_01 27:21

Cutting cards apart is uh cutting cards apart is real fun. Um I love going into the life and all that. Oh, that's great. And then you know, going into fires is a hell of an experience. Loved it. Uh by the time I ended up having to walk away from the fire service, I I was up for promotion to lieutenant. Um, I was one of the the turn uh was a fire train uh instructor, had my instructor certifications, had hazmat stuff, extrication stuff, I had a fistful of certifications, but I ended up having to walk away because it got to the point like if I go into this fire and I gotta drag someone out, I'm gonna do it. But I'm I'm useless after that. Uh you know, it or my biggest fear was going in there and then not being able to drag somebody out. Right. Like I'm not gonna have that on my conscience. No, no, no.

SPEAKER_00 28:08

You know, it's kind of good as you recognize that. And that a lot of people just I can do it. I can do it. My ego's too, you know. But at least you was like, man, I if I can't, I can't.

SPEAKER_01 28:20

I couldn't. I ended up walking away before someone got hurt, or I hurt myself more. Um so I just by that time, you know, I was already a paramedic and I had been for a couple years, so I just focused on that, and that's kind of where I'm at now. I'm career paramedic. Um probably not a great career choice, honestly. Um, but well, it depends on where you're at. I think it's a good idea. That's what it depends. Yeah, that's really what it depends. Like, you know, working for private services, that's horrid. Then you got hospital-based EMS, which is a little bit better, but the fi working as a paramedic for the fire services is where it's at, especially if you can work where I'm at, you know, outside the Louisville area with the you know, in in those departments where we're fortunate in that we have fire services that also have an EMS side to it. And you can be on that EMS side. You don't have to have fire search, you don't need to do the fire side. So that's that's where I'm at. I'm on the the EMS side of my my department, that's where I'm gonna stay. So I'm I'm fortunate enough to have found a place where it is 100% feasible to be a career paramedic, and I'm I'm paid well, my benefits are fantastic. I have a phenomenal schedule. I love everybody I work with, fireside and EMS. Chain of command's great, equip training and equipment is phenomenal. Um, I'm gonna die. I retire there. I ain't leaving. I'm fortunate. Uh so our base schedule is phenomenal. It's 2472. That's not that is fantastic. Um, but then I work a god awful amount of overtime. Like this week, I think I've got a day or two off. Yeah. I go in sometime next week for I think a 96. Like I work a god awful amount of overtime. Now, are you all busy? Depends on our station. So we have four stations. Um our station one is has their ambulance is what's called ungeofenced. So the city of Louisville metro uh Louisville Metro can pull it to make runs into Louisville and the surrounding areas. Yeah, pretty much. Um and they so that they're usually fairly busy. Um my station, I just got moved from the second busiest station. I was at our station three, and that was that we that even that wasn't terrible. That was on average, probably seven calls. That's not really not bad. Um now I'm at the slow station and I run like three. It's I get to sleep most of the nights. Um that's pretty good.

SPEAKER_03 30:37

Yeah, I don't blame you for wanting to stay there and retalk.

SPEAKER_00 30:40

All right, so you're from the Bay Area in California. Yeah, unfortunately. And how did you end up in Louisville, Kentucky area from from the military?

Moving Around COVID Burnout And Ian

SPEAKER_01 30:50

And I figured that would it's a it's a very interesting, wiggly route. So we when we got out, we went to lovely, Texas. And then um we were there for five, six years, ended up moving back to um ended up moving back to uh Georgia right outside of Stewart because while we were there, we we ended up buying a house. When we moved away, we just threw it up for rent. Never had a problem getting renters because it was 30 minutes outside the back gate. So never had an issue. Right. Moved back into that house. We lived there for probably two, three years. That was right as COVID was hitting its peak. Um and I at that time I'd walked away from EMS. It COVID was not great, um, especially in a very dense urban area. We were running multiple cardiac arrests a day. We were finding lots of lots of dead people, lots of people that we knew were gonna die. And that took a toll really, really fast. So I I walked away for probably two years, ended up starting a company with um one of my buddies from that I that I served with. And uh, we did like home renovations and bathroom remodels and just general stuff. And that worked great until all the supply chain issues started hitting. And then, you know, a two by four. You were getting, yeah, you were getting bent over for it. You know, thing of OSB costing you 60 to 100 bucks. So we couldn't keep up with those prices. We couldn't, you know, because we'd have to raise our prices to the point where we're no longer competitive. So we weren't gonna get any business. So we saw the writing on the wall and and shut down before we ended up going bankrupt. We we knew what was gonna happen with that, and Lord knew how long those supply chain issues were gonna last. Uh shortly after that, my ex-wife was offered a job down in Fort Myers, Kentucky, or uh Fort Myers, Florida, doing um like she worked for a major security company doing like uh representative stuff, and you know, I don't remember what it was called, but she she was one of the man, a regional manager.

SPEAKER_05 32:47

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 32:48

So we moved down there and we were there for a couple years, and then Ian hit and decided to do a hundred grand worth of damage to my house. Um and Ian Ian was wild, man. It made landfall as a cat four, but then every time the wind blew, it was cat five. Like it was wild.

SPEAKER_00 33:01

Where did that come in at? That came that came.

SPEAKER_01 33:04

Right in it. Fort Myers right at Fort Myers, Cape Coral area, it it smacked right into there. So yeah, that was interesting. Um, my first and last hurricane, not doing that shit again. Um did you stay? Yeah, we stayed in the house because it wasn't supposed to smack us head on, and then the last second it made just that right turn and came right in at Fort Myers, Cape Coral, and that was we're we're sitting there watching the radars, like, oh, we fucked up. We went south. We uh it was my so is my ex-wife and uh my daughter, and we're just riding it out. Uh that that was interesting. Did a hundred grand worth of damage to the house and ended up having to sue the insurance company to cover it. We'd lived in that house like a year and a half, and it was very nice. It was only a couple years old when we moved into it, so you didn't have any real issues. We still I had all the documentation from when I bought the house from the inspections. There was no nothing, no issues. Ian hits, I go to the insurance company, I'm like, all right, this is what's up. I've had another inspection, this is everything that was found. It's gonna be about this much, and file the claim, and they're like, oh yeah, no, that was all existing. Um, but here's $500 for food spoilage. Wow. And that that threw me through a damn loop. So I spent almost a year trying to sue the insurance company, finally got them to cover the vast majority of everything, got the house all fixed, and then um about that time the ex-wife was offered a job at the Louisville uh Louisville Assembly Plant for Ford as an outside contractor. So she she got hired by Pinkerton Investigative Services, which is really cool if you know anything about Pinkerton.

SPEAKER_05 34:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 34:45

She got hired by them to be uh a special investigator, and her job was doing like all the outside investigation or she she was like the third-party investigator. So anything, any real serious allegations that came through, it was her job to investigate them, do the interviews, and come up with you know what happened and why and who seems to be at fault and everything, and then hand it over to Ford and they would deal with it from there. The Pinkertons are oh, man, they broke stagecoach security shotgun with a sawed-off double barrel. Yeah. So that was really cool when she got hired by them. Um and she worked there for probably two years or so. And then the plant closed down for renovations at the end of last year, and they're probably gonna lose quite a bit of jobs when that plant opens back up because they're going, they're adding a lot of automation. Um, and it doesn't look like that they're gonna need, or they're not gonna have the staff anymore to warrant an outside investigator. And they're probably gonna have to cut like one of their HR people because they don't have the staff to warn, or they don't have the employees to warrant having that many there. So she's probably not gonna get offered that position back. So she, you know, uh about that time is when we decided to go our separate ways. She moved back to Lubbock. Um, but I've got hired here at the fire department. Like, I I can't really. This is this is a career. This is a once-in-a-lifetime career. I can't go anywhere.

SPEAKER_05 36:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 36:02

Um, and I I looked because I want to be wanted to be near my kids. I want to be a dad and everything, and looked around. I was gonna end up taking a $30,000 to $40,000 pay cut to move down to Lubbock again. Like, I wow, I cannot afford that. And I'd I wouldn't have anywhere near the benefits that I have now. No retirement, speak of.

SPEAKER_03 36:22

Like, I'm I would imagine that your retirement would start over anyways.

SPEAKER_01 36:26

Yeah, because I've been I've been out of the system and everything, and um I'm just now in the Kentucky system, so you know I'm I'm here for 25 years if I want to retire.

SPEAKER_03 36:35

Yeah, we've we've got a buddy that moved from here to Indian River County in Florida. Yep. Started his retirement back over.

SPEAKER_01 36:44

Yep. And that's so that's that would be the one of the biggest issues. You know, I'm I'm about to turn 36 and I I'd like to actually retire and not work until a couple days after I die. Amen. So I'm up here and it's a good feeling, boys. I'm sure it is. I'll get there one day.

SPEAKER_00 37:01

I retired at 46. I mean, it was pretty I was almost 47, but uh I was 46 when I caught it quit. Um I'm looking I'll be 50 soon.

SPEAKER_03 37:10

I'm looking at 53, I think, is what my age would be.

SPEAKER_00 37:14

Eh? That's not that's not bad.

SPEAKER_03 37:16

That's not bad at all.

SPEAKER_01 37:16

No, I mean you're still still young enough to be able to enjoy collect your retirement, do a nice part-time gig, and that that's your spending money.

SPEAKER_03 37:23

So I said at that point in time, I'll I'll go work with the Dollar General. I don't care.

SPEAKER_00 37:27

Yeah, SRO, hire a gun.

SPEAKER_03 37:29

No, no. I'll take once I take a gun done off, it ain't going back on. It's done.

SPEAKER_00 37:34

I'm I'm feeling now that's so you you liking Kentucky or you?

SPEAKER_01 37:42

I I love Kentucky. It's it's beautiful up here, it's it's green, whereas Lubbock is flat and dusty and terrible, and not a fan of Lubbock.

SPEAKER_00 37:48

Um I'm trying to think uh on the which Texas is humongous, so is Lubbock towards the oil fields and stuff? Is that that way?

SPEAKER_01 37:57

Uh it's just north of the Permian Basin. So you you drive like an hour south and you're in the Permian Basin, and it's oil fields for days. Okay. Um all the guys that I went to paramedic school and fire fire academy with, they're they're all still there. They're you know, Lubbock firemen, or they work for the oil fields themselves and everything. And so they ain't leaving anytime soon.

SPEAKER_00 38:12

Not because they're not gonna kill them in the oil fields.

SPEAKER_01 38:15

Oh, dude. Yeah, one of one of my buddies is uh that I went to paramedic school with, he's I think a battalion chief down in for one of the fire departments in the oil field, and that dude's clearing yeah, well north of six figures a year, loving his life anyway. Like you you hiring? Um see, you might have moved back for that kind of thing. Yeah, if I could get on there, yeah, I'll go. I'll have a bad one. That would be worth it. Yeah. I'm not cheap, but I can be had.

SPEAKER_00 38:44

That's uh that's me. That's my motto. I am a hired gun right now. I will go. Throwing up zeros on that paycheck.

SPEAKER_01 38:51

I'll I'll go wherever play a game. I I looked at trying to go overseas as a contractor and um was offered a position with one of the the larger companies, uh Triple Canopy, doing stuff in Baghdad as as a medic. And they offered me uh uh the position and everything was going through. I I'd put all my paperwork in and it was just waiting for State Department approval. And then all the drawdown started, and then we pulled out and everything. So that got canceled. And like, well, that was like 250 grand. That was that sucks. Um they were paying big money then. And oh yeah, it's it may be a shitty country, but yeah, again, there's enough zeros on that paycheck. I'll go back to the sandbox for a little while. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 39:34

Yeah, that's uh also that's tax-free too.

SPEAKER_01 39:37

Yeah, that would have been a great time. But uh and shortly after that, uh once once uh shortly after that got turned down. I you know, by that time I was already back in EMS and everything. So um I think at the time I was working for Amazon in southern Indiana, and uh because they had they had a massive warehouse out there, so I was on their medical staff out there, and it was just not for me. So that's when I decided to go back to the ambulance and worked for a private company that was god-awful and terrible in in uh southern Indiana. So it was just a private EMS, private uh really bad private company that started doing interfacility transports in central Indiana, and then they somehow managed to land this contract for uh Clark County, Indiana. Um so I worked I worked for them for several months, ended up becoming a shift supervisor, and then uh uh the the lawsuit will not allow me to discuss that further, but uh got terminated and it was not correct, and I fought it and won. And uh right about right about time that lawsuit cleared is when I was given this opportunity with the fire department that I'm at now, and I'm not leaving. Uh I'm the happiest I've ever been as a paramedic. So that's awesome. It's it's phenomenal. I love our magic. Good.

SPEAKER_00 40:54

I'm glad you f I'm glad you found a home up here in the in the bluegrass state.

Kentucky Work Life And Derby

SPEAKER_01 41:00

I love it. I just gotta go find a place.

SPEAKER_00 41:02

Go ahead and did you have to work the derby at all? Nope.

SPEAKER_01 41:04

I was out of town for that for all that nonsense. Thank God. Uh I was there for Thunder over Louisville, but we didn't have to do anything for it, so I got up to watch the fireworks show on the TV in the fire station.

SPEAKER_00 41:15

This place. The derby is it it's all hands on deck usually. I mean, especially with uh law enforcement. I've I couldn't imagine. I think they uh it's untelling if they take half of all the posts, like state police. I think I don't know how many.

SPEAKER_03 41:33

There's a lot of them. There's at least 50%. I was looking I was watching it last week, and it's like it was all you see was like, oh, there's troopers like lines and lines of well, yeah, because you've got you've got the actual facility security that they work, and then they do, I guess, VIP security also and then they escort in the yeah.

SPEAKER_01 41:52

Yep, and then they also in increase general patrols in the areas, and then they start increasing traffic enforcement and everything.

SPEAKER_03 41:58

And I mean, I guess you've got kind of a homeland security as a you've got the FBI. FBI's there, they're type of since it's that type of event.

SPEAKER_01 42:06

FBI and ATF are all there, and then they pull in the majority, you know, huge portions of Louisville Metro and uh Louisville Fire and the Louisville Police and everything. I think I read something recently, I think it was during Derby. It become like dirt the Derby Festival itself essentially becomes like the third largest fire department in the state or something just for that weekend. Yeah. And it's insane the amount of support personnel that go into it.

SPEAKER_03 42:34

And could you imagine running central command on that? Oh, I love it. Trying to keep up with all of the You know, I'm sure they got it down pat.

SPEAKER_00 42:43

I'm sure it's broken up really well, but they got enough practice, actually.

SPEAKER_03 42:46

They've had a plenty of all those assets moving, all those moving pieces.

SPEAKER_00 42:52

I think it's it's in the top probably five sporting events of the year. Super Bowl and uh I could see that. It's one of the, you know, in the especially in the U.S. as far, you know. In a non-World Cup year, you know, we got World Cup coming to US next year, and it's gonna be huge all over. I think they're playing it in several different areas. That's this year. Yeah, this year. That's this year, yeah. And that's gonna be a that's gonna be a pretty cool. But you know, that's a four-year deal. And but Super Bowl, the Derby. They were talking about some of these other sporting events, but the Derby's like up right up there. Yeah, it's insane in huge events.

SPEAKER_01 43:38

So you can watch like because I'm an aviation nerd, you know, I'll pull up the flight tracker stuff and I'm sitting there watching all these private jets flying for a derby.

SPEAKER_00 43:45

Like these are they come into Bowman usually, don't they?

SPEAKER_01 43:47

The other those are into Bowman, or depend depending on the size of the jets, sometimes they'll go land at Louisville International or uh Muhammad Ali. Yeah. And it's yeah, it's oh it's wild.

SPEAKER_00 43:56

Yeah, it's wild. It's the amount of it's a it's a huge Huge event.

SPEAKER_01 44:00

Serious money involved.

SPEAKER_00 44:02

Yeah. Oh yeah. Big money.

Weird EMS And Jail Stories

SPEAKER_00 44:04

It's a good race, too. So tell tell us one of the craziest stories, funniest, wildest calls you've ever been on.

SPEAKER_01 44:15

Um I got a couple. Let's see. I was uh I was a newer medic, and uh my partner was actually one of the guys that went to paramedic school. So you got two fairly junior medics on an ambulance. Like that's a little scary. All right. And we get called out. This we were on night shifts, so it's like two, three in the morning. Get called out for uh a seizure. Like, okay, fairly run in the middle call, whatever. Fire gets dispatched with us, and we go there and it's a seedy hotel. Um, get up in there, and this uh this scantily clad young lady is on the couch, just out. I'm like, okay, it's my partner's call, so he goes with fire and he starts doing patient care and stuff. And I I drag this guy around the corner into the kitchen and I'm talking to him, like, you know, hey man, what happened? Trying to get any information that I can while he's doing patient care. You know, what's her name, you know, her birthday, social, medical history, medications. Did she fall? Is there any drug or alcohol? You know, and just going through all that, trying to get as much information. And, you know, he describes, you know, what sounds like a seizure. Um, like, okay, cool. And then he happens to throw in there, like, and then uh so I put peanut butter in her mouth. Like, you do what now? I put peanut butter in her mouth. That's what you're supposed to do, right? When someone has a seizure, and right as I know I'm about to lean around the corner and tell my partner, Greg, hey man, check her airway. I hear from around the corner yell hear him yell, who the fuck put peanut butter in this brat's mouth? I stick my hand around the corner, and he's got the uh one of our Lorendoscope blades we use for innovation. He's sitting there using it as a spoon, scooping this out of her airway and flaying it onto the floor. Oh my god. I don't think I've ever heard of that.

SPEAKER_00 45:56

Like, ooh, um that's in my list to to check up on.

SPEAKER_03 46:01

I don't know where these people come up with these homemade remedies, but do you remember when we were having all the overdoses and for some reason these I know where this is going. Yeah, these cats decided that they were for some reason to remedy an overdose. You stick an ice cube up their butthole. Yeah. I mean, we were going through that all the time. She's like, Well, I stuck ice up his butt. It's still a thing. Yeah, you still see it every now and then.

SPEAKER_00 46:27

I wonder where they got that one from. I mean, I'm I'm sure Google would, yeah, stick a stick an ice cube up their butt, and that should that'll be our wake him up, that's fine.

SPEAKER_03 46:36

Somebody was telling me a story at the PD. It was along the same lines. Well, they didn't have an ice cube, but they had frozen chicken legs.

SPEAKER_04 46:45

That's so that's a new one.

SPEAKER_03 46:47

Yeah. So I can't remember. I'll have to I'll have to find out who that was that was telling me that.

SPEAKER_01 46:53

I don't even know how I'd respond to that.

SPEAKER_03 46:56

He woke up and he was angry after the Narcan hit. Wouldn't you be? Oh yeah. There's a what in my butt? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 47:04

Man, I'm always going to. You still can, bro.

SPEAKER_01 47:09

Just cook it well. Go wash it off. You're good.

SPEAKER_03 47:12

I think that's what Colonel Sanders meant with all those herbs and spices.

SPEAKER_01 47:16

That's that.

SPEAKER_00 47:18

I mean, how many um how many um herbs and spices? What's it? I don't know. Seven. That ain't one of them though. You should.

SPEAKER_01 47:29

I don't think digested corn was on his list of uh corn's just a tracer.

SPEAKER_03 47:35

It's fine. Yeah. Yeah, that was that was definitely what one of the weirdest ones. Wow. Peanut butter. I've never yeah, I've never heard of that. That's a new one. But it doesn't surprise me. Nothing surprises me with people anymore. It's just like okay.

SPEAKER_01 47:49

It takes a lot to impress me now. And uh I I think that yeah.

SPEAKER_00 47:53

What's another one? That's that's that's clever. I've never I've not heard that one. I've seen a lot of weird stuff.

SPEAKER_01 48:02

Uh never peanut butter in the mouth. When I worked at the jail, um, whenever they had some, you know, someone that went had been taken to the ER before they were brought in to the facility, you know, we had to go out there and clear them. Or if it was a combative person coming in, we had to go out there and just be right there and well the corrections and the and the officers and everything dealt with it.

SPEAKER_05 48:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 48:24

And then, you know, if they put anybody in restraints or anything, we had to go out there and check on them every 15 minutes with the officers and you know, all this. Um there's a bunch of reasons that we had to go out and deal with stuff like that. But I got called out there to the receiving area one day, and they're like, he's I call so I called up to the duty desk, like, hey, what's up? Like he's uh he's got something in his butt. Like, okay, well, this isn't the normal of, you know, this is normal. Like normally, I think the before this, the weirdest thing I'd found that had come out was like a cell phone, or at one point one of the a couple shooters of alcohol and like we call it the jail pocket. The jail pocket, yep. And I they're like, he's got he's he's gotta see it to believe it, man. He's he's got he's got a power strip in his butt. Sorry, what? So I go out there and he sure as shit had a um like a surge protector power strip? Yeah, it was it was a smaller one. It was like three or four outlets on there. He's got that thing up his butt and the cords hanging out like a tail. Please tell me y'all plugged him in.

SPEAKER_05 49:20

Oh that'll be green. Little tinkle.

SPEAKER_01 49:27

Don't touch it.

SPEAKER_05 49:28

Light up like a Christmas tree.

SPEAKER_01 49:30

Why did he have did he explain? Like, what uh what in the name of God possessed you to put that up there? Like, we found some things in people's rears before, but yeah, but it makes it make sense to like, hey, I'm gonna stick some booze in.

SPEAKER_03 49:43

Yeah, that's what he was using to fish out the lamp.

SPEAKER_01 49:48

Followed by the Xbox. Yeah. Like start talking to him. Now, this dude was nuttier than a fruitcake. This dude was off. He's like, well, the um the mob made me do it. I'm like, dude, this is Lubbock, Texas. The mob ain't a thing here. The cartel's all right, but yeah, not the mob.

SPEAKER_00 50:05

The mob made me do it.

SPEAKER_01 50:07

Yeah, exactly. He's like, oh, the mob made me do it. Like, all right, well, you're going to the hospital. And they ended up sending back the imaging. And yeah, that was a power strip in his butt. Um wow. And yeah. That's commitment. Really? Like, I mean, yeah. Like I what the purpose behind it was, what the all if there was an ulterior motive, I don't know. But all I saw was this naked guy standing and receiving with a pirate the plug-in hanging out his butt like a tail. And I'm that's that's a new one. That's one of those things you walk in the room and it just kind of makes you stop. Like, is that that that what I think it is? Is that what that looks like?

SPEAKER_03 50:44

Yeah, I don't think that's what they mean when they talk about butt plugs. That's or maybe he maybe it is. Maybe he was hoping to be plugging in.

SPEAKER_00 50:53

What do you mean? Oh my gosh. I I I'm baffled. I'm I'm just like, I don't have I usually have a lot of words, and I'm like, what?

SPEAKER_01 51:07

What do you yeah? Like I I've I've had a couple calls where something got stuck in a place that it shouldn't be. Yeah. Uh front and back. Yeah. Uh, but that was definitely a new one. Haven't seen anything like that one since. You know, every now and then you get the guy, you know, no, I slipped on it in the shower. Well, you're full of shit, but all right, let's go. Slay on your side on the stretcher, dude. You'll be all right. Wow.

SPEAKER_00 51:30

I don't oh yeah. It's wild. I mean, we've we've got the calls, but luckily we're like, hey, EMS is coming, just you're you're good. Don't sneeze inside. Just don't don't sneeze. I think if people really knew the amount of just insanity of the things that people will put inside them.

SPEAKER_01 52:00

Uh is ridiculous. The ones that get to me are the things that go in the front side. Like you, sir, stuck a skewer in there.

SPEAKER_03 52:13

Oh, yeah. Yeah. And yeah. Yeah, I get it. Yeah. What uh is it called kebabs to the thing?

SPEAKER_01 52:21

Like homie. Every now and then you get uh the urinary catheters that a demented old guy will either intentionally pull out or it'll get caught on something and get ripped out, and the bull there's a balloon on the end of them to keep them in place. And it'll get ripped out, and then you're standing there as a man, like, oh my god, are you are you there's blood everywhere and it looks like a blown-out hot dog afterwards?

SPEAKER_03 52:43

So we had a guy that he he got charged with DUI, but he'd wrecked and killed somebody. I don't know if you were still there when we had that going on, but we had to sit with him at the hospital because he was, you know, under arrest for murder charges. Well, while I'm sitting there with him, it was my my shift to sit with him. They had an old guy in the hospital too. And he must have been, I mean, you know, well endowed, apparently, like 90 years old. But every nurse on that floor made a trip in there, they were amazed because they had to go put a catheter in. It was, yeah. Impressive, sir. Plumbing still worked, apparently. That's so good for him. Good for him. Good.

SPEAKER_01 53:29

Oh my gosh. We had a guy in Iraq who was like that. Not the putting things in the hole, but uh extraordinarily well endowed. And uh he was the most innocent kid in the world. I he was like 20 at the time, and you know, I don't know if they did it with y'all, but they do random urinalysis testing. And sometimes it's the whole company, sometimes it's just a list of random people that they pull and they're like, all right, go in that room and you're gonna stay there and drink water, and then when you need to go pee, this NCO is gonna follow you into the bathroom. Oh, I've been gonna watch you pee.

SPEAKER_00 54:02

I've been that NCO. That's the first job you get when you've newly, newly uh promoted. I was a corporal in the Marines they promoted you know as NCO. Yep. Guess what, man? Congrats. Yeah. Uh guess what you're gonna do. You're the pecker checker this week.

SPEAKER_03 54:19

Thanks. How terrible would that job be at MEPS? I mean, how terrible.

SPEAKER_00 54:22

I mean it's not even these are your buddies, man, that you're just working with.

SPEAKER_03 54:26

Well, that would make it a little better.

SPEAKER_00 54:28

No, no, no. Makes it worse. You stand over there by the urinal. You're supposed to watch it. You have to watch. Yeah, you gotta watch the urine leave the body.

SPEAKER_03 54:35

So you're over there saying, nice belt. Is it made of leather?

SPEAKER_00 54:40

It's not, it's not a it's not a glamorous job. It's like welcome. You're a you know, in the Marines, you get the blood stripe on your on your you, you know, you're on the blue pants, you get the red stripe, and you get, you know, they pin you, and you're like, oh yeah. Yeah, some people now. I'm I've I've made it past uh you know uh a janitor. Now I get to tell guys to go sweep. And then still sleep. But you know, you're looking, you're sitting there and you're like, hey, uh, hey, congrats, you guys. You you know, it was like in March, I got promoted, and I'm like, Yeah. Oh, we got urine test uh tomorrow. Guess what?

SPEAKER_01 55:22

Guess what, bud?

SPEAKER_00 55:23

Yes, yay. But no, it you know, you got everybody stands there.

SPEAKER_01 55:29

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 55:30

We had a we had a training run, and everybody just like, hey, here's the water, get at it. Yep. And you could tell the guys who were gonna fail it.

SPEAKER_01 55:39

Oh, yeah, they're sitting there sweating and nervous.

SPEAKER_00 55:40

Sweating it, waiting it, the last once to go, and you're like, You idiot. Yeah, just go ahead and get it over with. Yeah. But it's uh it's a yeah, it's horrible, man.

SPEAKER_01 55:51

These guys. But you make the best of it. So like it, whenever it was my turn, I you know, the first time or two, I'm like, this is a little awkward. Then after that, I just lost my give a damn. So I made it awkward for everybody. I'd go in there and I'd hold my cup up and I'd just drop my pants down to my ankles and the kindergarten thing.

SPEAKER_03 56:08

You gotta you're gonna assert dominance at the point.

SPEAKER_01 56:10

If you're gonna watch, I'm gonna I'm gonna let you let's do it.

SPEAKER_00 56:13

It it is a it's it's the worst job as a brand new NCO, but it's kind of you have to. That's part of it, man. I've never seen the beat. They just, you know, like the first time I got urine test in in the police department, they'd send you up there, and I'm like, well, just leave, don't flush. And then I was like, well, this is this is easy. Yeah. Like, you don't come in here and watch me pee in this.

SPEAKER_01 56:38

It's you sure you don't work too? I don't know if I can go by myself. This it's awkward without you watching. Can you come look at Massage?

SPEAKER_03 56:47

Come pat me on the back where it's not gonna work. I need the reassurance. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 56:51

It is a that is a job though.

SPEAKER_01 56:53

Oh, we had this, we had this young kid, and he got pulled for a UA one day. And so, you know, he goes to go to the bathroom and the NCO follows him, and they come back out of the bathroom, and he's got his cup of pee, and he's he's just bright red. And the NCO goes, Holy shit, this dude is just like so So then he somehow magically wound up on every UA for like the next six months, and all the NCOs were starting to fight, like there's no way it's that big. And then they'd come back out and they're like, This was right before we went to Iraq, and this kid was uh still an innocent child. So the infantry guys, he was a medic. So his his infantry. Yeah. So like the so the infantry guys are like, you can't you can't go to Iraq, especially where we're going with your innocence intact. Like, we we gotta solve this for you. And so they uh they ended up hiring him a lady of the night, uh, you know, as good friends, I guess. And they go We love you, man. Yeah, here's syphilis. Here you go. Here you go, Doc. Get after it. Make sure you take penicillin. Kiko, they were in the room a whole of like 30 minutes, and she comes at back out and she's like, I don't know what the hell y'all wanted me to do with that, but hell no. And hands her the money back and please.

SPEAKER_03 58:15

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 58:16

That was one of those, like they should have just sent him in to board, like pull his pants out of there and give.

SPEAKER_01 58:21

Dude's got a D cell mag light between his legs, and she's like, dude. It was one of those, like, good for you, but I'm sorry.

SPEAKER_00 58:28

We talk about all this, and it's it but the Marines and the Army, you it's the you you're humbled really quick, and you very you're like, the first thing you I mean, honestly, well they shave your hair and they strip you naked, man. You're going in them showers.

SPEAKER_01 58:46

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 58:47

And they just like after a PT, our first PT, I never I never forget it. Like the they you had the road guards, like your advance party kids. Yeah. They would go, you know, they was wearing the road guard vests, would stop traffic as you ran through or whatever. Yeah. They flew. Like after, you know, it depends on the time of year, especially like in Georgia or something like that. They turn on those um sprinkler systems, but like they did at Paris Island, and you'd walk under those to cool off. Because, you know, it's summertime and the heat, man, they'd they'd cool us off and the misters.

SPEAKER_01 59:17

Oh, god, I wish they would have done that at Stewart.

SPEAKER_00 59:19

That was great. They didn't have those at Stuart. I remember that. But we would we would walk through that stuff, cool down. Because I mean, they we were running in near Black Flag territory there. So they were trying to get us cooled down, they didn't want anybody to fall out because they used to talk about the silver bullet, getting silver bullet, yeah. But I don't even know if that's true, but you're scared to death to not hydrate. That's true.

unknown 59:39

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 59:40

But but somebody would run up to the barracks, those guys, you know, the road guards would run up to the barracks and turn on all the water. Drink all the waters in the showers. And you, you know, it was port side or starboard side, whichever side you were on. Um or everybody just stripped down and got in line. Yeah. And you walked you just walked a circle through the no soap, just held your towel up. It was a PT shower. Just let the water run over you and out, go get back dressed. And that was just to wash the sweat off of it. Just a little easier. Then you go get dressed, throw some deodorant on, and you had like three seconds to get all this done.

SPEAKER_05 1:00:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:18

Everybody in line, hold the towel up, walk through it, and you're immediately like, I've seen 90 some peckers today. And they and that was it. You didn't even think about it ever again.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:31

That was it. But between basic combat medic school and then being a medic in the infantry, I have seen more peckers than a hooker does in a lifetime of Friday and Saturday nights.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:42

Yeah, it's just so you just they it's just a humbling, like get over it, boop-de-doo. Yeah, and no big deal. Part of it. Part of it, get over it. Don't be so, don't be so bashful. Everybody's everybody's different, but everybody's the same. Yeah. Go. Oh yeah. It is it's uh it's interesting, man.

Military Humor UA And Silver Bullet

SPEAKER_03 1:01:05

So for those that don't know, explain the silver bullet process.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:09

Uh so if you go down as a heat cat, which you know, Georgia happens quite a bit, hot, humid as hell. Especially when you're out in the field for a couple days, you know. Daryl saying it.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:19

Yeah. Do you get a silver bullet? Um I think he likes them. Oh I need my temperature taken.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:26

I'm feeling faint. So you go down, and if it, you know, we suspect it's heat related, we need a core temperature. I need to know what your core temperature is to see how, you know, what's going on. Are you full of it and you're just trying to get out of training? Or is there something going on that I, you know, I got to work and then I gotta get you to a hospital? And um out comes the red tip thermometer and up it goes.

SPEAKER_05 1:01:49

Hmm.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:50

Got to get that core temp. And that that's enough to get a lot of guys to just keep going. And so, you know, you know who really wanted to train because they would be like, nah doc, I'm fine. And they're sitting there weaving pale. Yeah. Like, dude, you you you ain't you ain't all right. You need to come with me. What where where are we at right now? Uh bacon? Yeah, come with me. Come on.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:11

Yeah. Yeah, you can tell the difference. It it they talked about it. I never saw it done. I'm sure there was plenty that went down with heat because you know several, unfortunately.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:22

It's not not the best part of my job, but you chose that life. I chose that was not in the job description.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:30

They didn't tell that. Just a happy surprise.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:35

Oh, by the way. Yeah. Not only are you gonna save people's lives and learn, you know, all this. Also, you're gonna stick this where the sun don't shine.

SPEAKER_05 1:02:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:45

And make sure they're good. Yep. But it's um my my my grandfather was a medic in World War II. And he was talking about just some of the wildest stuff I've ever heard. I'm sure. He there towards the end of the war, he was you know, they would they would go out to crossroads and like whatever infantry, they'd have arrows pointed this way and that way. And he had to run back to wherever their fields, you know, their mash unit, whatever they called it, yeah, and had to the tank or truck, track, something hit something, the guy bit his tongue in two. So they had to take him back, get him, you know, so he was trying to catch back to the convoy and come up to a crossroad. And uh was looking, they were looking to see which way it went, and there was a barn down under uh pretty close. And this barn in this barn, they would look down and they hear a tank coming out, and it was a German uh like a panzer type tank come out and level that barrel on them. Luckily, you know, they they probably saw the uh he says that the you know they had that red cross on the side and he said that it just kind of eased back in and took off. At least they didn't fire. At least they didn't fire. You know, I'm just like granddad, you know. I was like, what if I mean I wouldn't be here, you know, it's just but I mean the things he saw and uh but I was just like it's the wildest stuff, you know. He didn't tell many stories, but he kept a he kept a picture in his um wallet till uh to the day he died of uh they liberated a camp. Oh shit. And he had a picture of a dead um German soldier that when they when they got there, I guess they took some prisoners in some of the camp, you know, some of the prisoners. Um Gia, let me see your gun. And they were and one of them just smoked this guy. Granddad had a picture of this uh so he never forgot. And he was stoic and didn't really talk about it much. But obviously things affected him because you carry that in your pocket. I mean, um, so obviously he it was a reminder of some of how I guess humanity could really be. How how far you can fall. Yeah. And I think I don't know where that picture. My dad may have it, he may, I don't know. I don't really want it, but I was I just wondered like what why did you keep it? What was so what was the significance if it affected him that much? Because I know he was there. But I I heard him talk about, you know, he went across the Rhine River with Patton and stuff like that. You're like, Wow, all this stuff that you see and hear, and I'm like gosh, and the movies I've watched, and yeah, like granddad was here, here and here, and I'm like, My goodness. It's untailing. And he never really told a whole lot of stories about it.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:04

And I I get it. Like it's there's a lot of stuff that happened that I I do my best to forget about that I've buried down deep. I don't want to think about it. I don't want to talk about it. And then there's I I had a I didn't have it in Iraq, but in Afghanistan I had a Helmet cam and I I took uh the SD card out of it, uploaded into a hard drive, and it's wrapped in bubble wrap. I haven't looked at it. I've been home since 2013. I I don't want to look at it.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:33

Right.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:33

I have it. So if one of my kids ever says, you know, I want to join the military, all right, son, come here. Yeah. This is what you're signing up for.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:41

You watch this, I'll be outside.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:42

Yeah. Let me know when it's done. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:44

Uh and that might have been, you know, and and I joined, he was, you know, he was in his 70s when I joined the Marines or something, but we always had a special, special bond, but it it was just like it was fascinating. I mean, I wonder what they hide it. That that generation hid, I think they were just tough old birds or something. I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:10

But they don't build them like that no more.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:11

No. Greatest generation for a reason. Let's say we went through depress, you know, the Great Depression and all this stuff, plus the war, and then Korea. Yeah, and they were just hard, man. These guys were hard.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:23

They didn't complain near as much as we did.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:25

No, we're a bunch of babies. Yeah, they meet.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:27

They definitely don't build them like that no more. No.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:30

Different. Different tough, different breed.

What War Changes For Good

SPEAKER_00 1:07:34

And you know, it makes me nervous with war with Iran and stuff like that. And having a 18-year-old son.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:42

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:43

And I hear you hear little like, hey, they may reinst do the draft and all this stuff, and you're just like Well, they just automated it.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:49

The selective service is now automated.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:52

So just you're just like, Lord, no. I've been there, done that. We don't need this again.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:59

And it always seems that the people that advocate the hardest for invading somewhere and going back to war will never walk into the recruiter's office. They've never seen it. They don't have the guts to try to do it, but they are more than willing to sign to send some other kid to go do it for them. And that's that's what pisses me off. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:16

You know, well, it's easy, it's easy to spend somebody else's money. 100%.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:21

It is a it's easy to go to war when you're not the one that has to fight. Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:24

You know, it's an honor. I I find it, you know, I spent four, six, six years in, and it was an honor to do it. I'm proud of my service. Oh, yeah. And I'm glad I did it. It changed my whole trajectory of my life. I think um it made me who I am. I think um also it made me some bad things in my life.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:51

So it's you get some of the most awesome experiences in your life there that'll change you forever. But at the same time, especially if you serve during a wartime, you will see and do some of the most horrendous shit in the world. And it's it's not great. It's it's literally the best worst job I've ever had. I don't regret it. I it, you know, if I had to go back in time, I'd I'd still serve, but I I my dumbass would have finished college and I would have done what my grandfather wanted me to do, which was commission into the Navy and go fly.

SPEAKER_05 1:09:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:20

Then instead my dumbass hated college and wound up on the enlisted side on the ground.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:24

So that's how that's a good way to explain law enforcement too. It's not ex it's not as extreme as, you know, wartime military, but it's it's still the it's the best worst job.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:37

I couldn't do what y'all do. I I don't have the patience, I don't have the temperament.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:40

I couldn't do what you guys do. I do.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:41

If I had y'all's job, I'd be in prison by the end of the day. I don't take I couldn't take anywhere near the amount of crap y'all put up with. Well, you just have to remember you can do anything you want to once. Once. Exactly once.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:51

It's not a war crime the first time, all right? I I button guts don't I don't like it too good. But I could deal with it, but I just think See, that doesn't bother me. See, over and over, I think it would affect me more than I think because I know the calls, I don't go on a call for service, especially now where I'm here, but I you know, going to a fatal doesn't happen all the time. And then I I'm I'm usually like, oh, let me turn this over to Well, and you're disconnected from it too.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:22

Yeah. You're not, it's not like, which I would imagine, you know, as a combat medic, you know these guys, you're connected to these guys.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:30

So it's not and in some cases you spent years with them and you live in close proximity with them in the barracks and you go drinking with them, you know.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:37

It's not like me working a fatality for somebody that I have no idea who these people are. There's yeah, you know, and it it's it it sounds callous to say that, but they're whether they're alive or dead has no bearing on me. Yeah, as far as that goes. But it is somebody's family and it's hard, but it's so you're just in work mode the whole time and you're not see it would be tough.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:58

I don't know what's harder, because I we had a you know, just you think about guys that you served with, that you drank with, that you hung out with at the can, you know, in the in your barracks and you know, play play state all this stuff, and then they're wounded or they're and now their work's empty. Yeah, yeah, and they're empty. And that's gotta be as affected you know, on your mental side of things as getting blown up is not, you know, I'm sure both sides are traumatic. But you've worked and been there with this guy, and then have them not there is just probably equally seeing the guys that you, you know, that that you have spent the last several years with get hurt.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:40

That that is that's unforgettable. That's not not a great part of the job, but that's that's what you're there for. And then as as the medic, it was my responsibility to make sure to give them the best chance of survival. Yeah. And sometimes that's not possible. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:54

Um as hell. War as hell.

SPEAKER_03 1:11:57

With all that being said, since you've worked combat and I guess private sector, what we would call it EMS. Which would you which did you enjoy most?

SPEAKER_01 1:12:12

I don't yeah, I don't know, man. Like I the military is great because you had you had your buddies, and those those are the those are the best friends I've ever had, and I still talk to a lot of them. I don't I don't miss the military. I miss getting to play with the camaraderie. I miss the camaraderie and getting to play with the toys. That was awesome. Yeah. Um, everything else about the military is terrible.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:30

I can concur. Um the military, it's about the guy next to you. Oh, yeah. The the rest of it is that hurry up and wait crap and the it's horrible. I never I don't know how many times I mean, so yes, absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:48

You'll you'll do great and terrible things for that dude standing right next to you. Yes. And yeah, no. But but being the paramedic side of it, it's I feel is more rewarding. I want to I I guess. I don't know. I'd at the end of the day, it's it's their emergency. It's not it's not mine. They call me on the worst day of their life.

SPEAKER_03 1:13:07

Do you feel like you're making more of a difference on this side of it? Yeah. Yeah, 100%. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:11

I I never have to go to bed at night wondering if I made a difference in someone's life or in someone's world. That may not be, you know, may not be every day that you know you're doing something that is trying to fend off the reaper or something, but it may just be picking meme all up off the floor. Yeah. But then there are the days you're like, I I did something today. And that that's that's nice feeling, especially when you, you know, you have something super critical and what you do then and there is going to could make a significant difference on this patient's outcome. Are they going to live? Are they or are they not? Am I setting them up for survival? Am I doing the best that I can? And then at the end of the day, you know, you I I get to go lay my head down and go, Yeah, I made a damn difference in this person. You know, without me, they may not have made it. And that's an awesome feeling, knowing that you've helped my team and I. It's it's not just me, it's it's my fire guys, it's my partner. It's it's all of us coming together to try to help this patient and set them up and you know, try to help keep their family intact and everything.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:09

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:09

That's that's awesome. I love that.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:12

I agree. Well, we sure appreciate you coming on and how meeting you. It's fun. These these things are about your service and about you. And so one day your your kiddos can be like, that's what, you know. I've seen I've been seeing those. What was it like in the 90s, Dad? What were you like in the 90s, Dad? It's so cool to be able to um that's an excellent ring. To pass some stuff along.

SPEAKER_05 1:14:40

Stuff that's fitting.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:44

Oh cap, sorry. So, but we've what to do this again? We want to do one where we go on where we go up there and talk to some other folks, and we'll love to have you back. And I'd love to come back. I got plenty of stories.

SPEAKER_03 1:14:59

Yeah, it's it's hard once you get started talking. I mean, stuff starts popping up in your head. It's hard to sit down and think, be like, I'm trying to think of some funny stories. But then as soon as you start talking, you're like, ah, here's there's that, there's that. And then I've gotten we got more than that.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:16

Yeah, give us one more before we close out.

A Heartbreaking Stroke Call

SPEAKER_01 1:15:18

I've got uh a wild stroke that I ran. Um it was at it was in Lubbock, it was a nice uh an upscale like assisted living area. Um this this lady had had a previous stroke a couple years back, yeah, and she's non-verbal now and for the most part can't really move. Um, so she's she got moved into that assisted living area, and so she's the one that's receiving assisted living care. The husband was like, Well, I don't want to live without my wife, and so sold everything and moved in with her. So he's not receiving any care. He's just there living with his wife. Like, all right, cool, I get it. And we get a call late night for a stroke at this place. Like, okay, old folks' home to be expected, cool. We get there, and there's this gentleman on the couch, slumped over, and took one look at him, and you're like, oh, oh no. Yeah, this is a stroke. Um I was the only paramedic, so you know, I'm I'm doing my thing and looking at him, and his respirations are wild and erratic. His blood pressure was north of 220, pulse is starting to sink down, pupils aren't right. Um, so you know, all this put together kind of indicates like there's a bleed in the brain. This isn't just a clot in there, this is a bleed, and it's putting pressure on the brain. And once that gets bad enough, the brain will actually start to kind of push out of the bottom of your skull. It's called that hole, it's called the foramen magnum. It'll start to herniate out of there. That's not great. You're not going to survive that. And you usually don't survive hemorrhagic strokes like this anyway, especially once you get to the point that you're showing these signs and symptoms. Um well, he was sitting on the couch watching TV, and the staff came in and took care of the wife and put her to bed and everything, and you know, said, you know, goodnight, Mr. whatever his name was. And he's, you know, everything was fine. He said, good night, thank you very much. They closed the door and left. Uh an hour or two later, the call light for that room just starts going ape shit. Press, press, press, press, press, press, press, press, press. So the nurses go in, they're like, What's what's wrong? And the pretty well quadruplegic wife had managed to get herself out of bed to this call button and was smacking the shit out of it. And they walk in and they're like, What's wrong? Because the husband's still just sitting on the couch. Like, what's wrong, man? And she's just kind of gesturing over to the husband, and they go check on him and realize that something was wrong, you know, what was going on. And so they call 911. Um I get it, you know, we get him to the hospital and I innovate him and get him to the hospital and everything. And I went followed him to the CT room, and yeah, he's having a massive bleed. They called the neurologist and they they just put him on pallet of care at the end in there. He didn't he didn't see the sunrise. Um I started thinking back like this, they'd been married like 50 years. This quadriplegic lady had realized from across the room that something was wrong with her husband and was able to get herself out of bed to go push this light. She knew something was wrong. And that that sticks with me. I don't I don't know why that sticks with me, but I don't know. I can't even I can't even really explain it. Like how I guess when you married that long, you just kind of she kind of knew something was up and something wasn't right and he wasn't moving and acting right or something. And she was able to get to get to that call light, and unfortunately.

SPEAKER_03 1:18:41

Yeah, that's it. That's what's impressive.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:43

That's what's impressive, is she wherever she dug deep from. Yeah. And that love you know how much love and and commitment I think that takes from uh uh my wife would have dug in and got over there and then unplugged something, right? I gotta charge my phone. Go towards the uh but she wow the incredible feats of just I guess just pure love to try to try to save your your spouse.

SPEAKER_03 1:19:18

I guess that goes towards like the moms that like squat, you know, deadlift the cars off of off of people, you know, just the it seems like that's even more because she probably hadn't m she's nonverbal, you see.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:30

Nonverbal. Like she she can't even get out of the bed to get to you know her her wheelchair. Like she can't do anything herself, and she managed to do this. Jeez. That is wild. I unfortunately I ended up having to go back a couple months later and declare her dead. She she had a DNR, so we didn't we didn't do anything. I ended up having to go back and declare her dead maybe two months later, unfortunately.

SPEAKER_03 1:19:48

But that's usually how that that kind of works that way. They cave themselves to death. Yeah, that was uh that one was wild.

Tornadoes Community And Closing

SPEAKER_00 1:19:58

Stories that we've heard on here and and the things that people have seen, you know, we've been talking a lot about last year at this time a year that the tornado came through our hometown. Yeah. And we've had a couple talking about that, you know, a couple of different episodes.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:15

But I was up in Indiana for that. Uh I'm I was the ship supervisor, and I managed, I got all my ambulances to find spots at the local firehouses so they could go take shelter, but there was nowhere left for my partner and I and our ambulance to go. So we backed down at um the mall in Clarksville, just back into one of their loading bays. So we were somewhat sheltered, and we're sitting there watching lightning, and it's thunder and hail and you know, just raining sideways. And I'm sitting there looking out the window. I see green lightning. I'm like, oh, that's cool. I've never seen that before. Looked it up, it's because there's a tornado on the ground over there. Um but I'm sitting there typing a report, and my buddy, my partner, you know, the ambulance is sitting there rocking back and forth in the wind. And so he's got me on video just sitting there typing the report, typing a report, and he goes, So what do you think about all this, Chris? This is your first tornado. And I just kind of look at him like, well, they've always wanted to be a flight medic, so if we take off like Dorothy, yeah, I guess my wish is fulfilled.

SPEAKER_03 1:21:12

It's all fun and games to see the old woman on the back. Yep. That is bad news.

SPEAKER_00 1:21:17

We went through a hurricane, went through a through a tornado.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:21

It's uh and it I've been through living in California, the earthquake. So I think I've kind of hit the trifecta here.

SPEAKER_03 1:21:27

Yeah, you're good. You just need a volcano and you're we we got them all. Right.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:32

Good times. He every now and then he'll still send me a message like you flight medic? No. You find another tornado? No.

SPEAKER_00 1:21:42

Let's go. That one that one last year. That's enough for a long time. Yeah. I'm good. If we uh like I get freaked out if they even talk about like watches. I just I don't want no part of them.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:57

So I've listened to the the stories that came off this podcast from that, and that that just sounds wild. Uh it was it was bad.

SPEAKER_03 1:22:04

That's it's probably the worst, I guess, natural disaster we've had.

SPEAKER_00 1:22:08

We've had some floods stuff, but that one just kind of like nothing with that kind of death toll or you know, that day we did a podcast uh with Sonny, and he was telling basically that serial killer, the one he helps off. And that was that day. And we finished that up and it was dark outside, and I went I went to another event. There was a buddy of mine was singing downtown, London, and went to listen to him because I didn't have electric in my house from a storm that came through earlier. And um I mean, who would have known? I thought the worst of it was, you know, through kind of and you're like and then a monstrosity happens, and you're like just never events like that are are wild, man.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:59

You'll see the best of humanity come out. Yeah. And it's it was even it was like that after Ian, too. You know, after everything had cleared, you know, everyone and their mothers outside chainsaws and shovels and rooms.

SPEAKER_00 1:23:09

And I saw there was a tornado that went through this week down in Mississippi, and um my favorite group is down there, and they were on TV, the Cajun Navy. Oh man. I don't know how they do it, and I I don't know how many volunteers or whoever they've got, but they are ready to go. They've impressed me so much. I'm like, man, how do I get a part of that or become one of them? I guess you gotta live in Louisiana. I don't know, but they are they're pretty hand, they're pretty handy, man. They were up, they were up here for our tornado and then in the floods. Um but I'm highly impressed with that group. They just they don't care, man. They get after it, they don't care.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:51

They came out for Ian, and if I remember right, they went out for those those bad floods in Texas that hit that Girl Scout camp.

SPEAKER_00 1:23:56

Yeah, they were they were there.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:58

They they're fantastic.

SPEAKER_00 1:23:59

Yeah, I'm like, man, these these guys are the I don't know if they start out at Katrina. I can't remember.

SPEAKER_01 1:24:05

I think they started out with Katrina.

SPEAKER_00 1:24:06

Yeah, so they they've been around a while and they know what they're doing. So it's pretty impressive. The best of humanity.

SPEAKER_01 1:24:12

Yes, sir. Don't see enough of that in our line of work.

SPEAKER_00 1:24:15

No, we see a lot of the worst, but it is so refreshing to see good folks trying, even if they don't like each other, all of a sudden they're working together to add a common goal.

SPEAKER_01 1:24:26

So after once we got our neighborhood cleaned up, I I went downtown to go help with the cleanup, and that I hadn't seen that level of destruction since uh since being deployed. That was wild to just see houses leveled, you know, concrete ripped from the ground.

SPEAKER_00 1:24:45

I was the there was two, what was the two hurricanes, the one that flooded all of um in North Carolina, that that one, and then there was another one that happened later. Herma? Whatever.

SPEAKER_01 1:24:58

And Harvey did some damage.

SPEAKER_00 1:25:00

Something like that. A couple years ago, there was back-to-back hurricanes came in the kind of in the Tampa Bay area that kind of uh uh that went on up. And I've we've got family down there. My father-in-law lives there, and we went down there and I just couldn't believe. You know, you know, it was a couple weeks later, it was after the second one. And you go down there and all that all your old favorite restaurants they're gone. And then you keep going, you go down there, we was down there and they're not rebuilt back, and you're some have, and they just carve out a path, and uh they they don't, you know, Mother Nature just doesn't care about your feelings and your wants and needs. And but what I learned was uh you know, you see you and you probably notice this at the beaches and stuff that all the sand that washed in, they pile that up so high.

SPEAKER_05 1:25:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:25:55

And you're like, Whoa, what's it? They just sift it, put it back on the beach, like everything's anew. Yeah, and then people that live there go through that, they just keep on they know it's coming. Keep on trucking, they keep on doing it.

SPEAKER_01 1:26:08

Yeah, they get ready for the next one. Like I the one was enough for me. Yeah. I'm good. Nope. I'm up here now. Uh I'll take the occasional possibility of a tornado over that again.

SPEAKER_03 1:26:21

Well, the good thing about Kentucky is if you don't like the weather, wait 15 minutes.

SPEAKER_00 1:26:26

It'll change. I'm expecting rain on the way home, so we'll see.

SPEAKER_01 1:26:30

It was in the 50s, what, a week ago, and then today is back in the 70s. Like, this is wild. Can you pick something?

SPEAKER_03 1:26:35

Just 70 in the day, low of 30 at night.

SPEAKER_01 1:26:39

Getting tired of having to take tired of having to take my my rain stuff and then my winter stuff and then my summer stuff to work.

SPEAKER_00 1:26:44

I don't know what to put, I don't know what to bring with me. I've got it all.

SPEAKER_01 1:26:48

I'd like to pack up my winter stuff. That'd be nice, please.

SPEAKER_00 1:26:52

So you ready? Man, this has been a good one. Uh we really appreciate you.

SPEAKER_01 1:26:57

No, I yep, dude. Thanks for having me out here. This is phenomenal. I'd I'd love to come back out if you all ever come out again.

SPEAKER_03 1:27:03

Um the plan, uh we talk about this, I think, every podcast, but eventually is to start doing video and to get a group of all of us together and kind of do one big Oh, that'd be awesome. Yeah, just there's a group of Louisville folks I'd love to get together that we've interviewed, so that could be fun.

SPEAKER_01 1:27:22

I'll take you around the firehouse.

SPEAKER_03 1:27:23

Yeah. So yeah, next time we'll we'll come to you, let you all go live your dream and maybe pull a fire hose and squirt some water. Yeah, I made the wrong choice long long time my career path. If I could have just scored higher on that test, civil service test gets you every time.

SPEAKER_00 1:27:41

All right.

SPEAKER_03 1:27:42

All right, we'll catch you on the next later, y'all. Thanks.