"So what does Erik do at work?" you may ask...LOL

I'm having one of those nights where I'm wide awake, mope-ing around the internet because my life is rather boring, and I can't think about anything to write about. It's tough to think of something to write about that will entertain or keep someone else interested in reading it. Lately I've had a few other bloggers that are employed in my line of work(other than Linda), read some posts and send comments, so I figure, maybe post about my job.

Taken from QVEC website...
Who We Are

Quinebaug Valley Emergency Communications, Inc.(QV), is a non-profit corporation that was founded in 1974, to establish and administer an improved emergency notification and dispatch system in Northeastern Connecticut. We receive 911 emergency calls, dispatch the appropriate agency (fire and/or ambulance organization), transfer calls to State and local police departments, and provide continuous radio communications throughout our 17 town area.

The QV dispatch area: 519 square miles , includes 99,700 permanent residents and contains 37 fire departments, 14 ambulance agencies, 2 municipal police departments and 2 State Police agencies.

In large measure, our responsibility is the management of communication. Our office at the State Police Troop ‘D’ Barracks includes sophisticated radio communications equipment which links us to local, regional and State-wide fire networks and hospital emergency rooms and even to the National Defense Warning System.

I think JDF(our manager) did a good job briefly summing up what we do.

I'll give you just a quick list of departments and radios that we deal with here at QV...

(12) Radio towers: Thompson, Union, Brooklyn, South Killingly(MAIN), Griswold, Voluntown(Ekonk Hill), Hampton, Mansfield, Tolland, Plain Hill, Franklin, and our small back up tower behind the State Police Barracks here.

Each tower has a variety of radio frequencies on them depending on the area departments, ranging from Low Band, (VHF) High Band, and (UHF)Ultra High Band.

Toning Frequency: 33.80

Operating Frequencies: 33.44, 33.64, 33.72, 33.74, 33.76, 33.78, 33.88, 33.90, Danielson Highband, Putnam Highband(back up for WA), Statewide Mednet frequency, Statewide dispatch-to-dispatch, Rhode Island Inter-city(their form of statewide), and (VOIP)Voice Over Internet Protocol system, which is an online radio system with the State of RI. Our UHF system uses two main frequencies, and is "trunk-based" to have 16 different radio channels with different (PL's)private lines, branched off the two main frequencies. Basically, the whole system uses two frequencies, but with different PL's programmed, so that there is basically 16 frequencies that the responders can use, but either way they all are received here at QV on the two channels. We manage the med-patch radio to Day Kimball Hospital in Putnam for all incoming ambulances, and have a radio link to the State Police console downstairs, which is nice because we don't even have to pick up the phone to talk to them. We also have an I-TAC base radio, a MED-SAT(satelite) phone, and the NAWAS phone(North Atlantic Weather Alert System). Oh, and we also have a bendix mobile radio in our computer tower with several hundred other frequencies programmed in, just in case for back up.

Agencies we dispatch for:

Station 9 (Chaplin)

Station 12 (Hampton Fire, Hampton/Chaplin Ambulance)

Station 16 (Scotland Fire and Ambulance)

Station 24 (Baltic Fire and Ambulance)

Station 53 (Voluntown Fire and Ambulance)

Station 54 (Lisbon Fire and Ambulance)

Town of Griswold
Station 55 (Griswold Fire)
Station 56 (Jewett City Fire)
Griswold Ambulance

Town of Killingly
Station 60 (Williamsville Fire)
Station 61 (Danielson Fire)
Station 62 (Attawaugan Fire)
Station 63 (Dayville Fire)
Station 64 (East Killingly)
Station 65 (South Killingly)
K-B Ambulance

Station 67 (Sterling Fire)

Station 68 (Oneco Fire)

Station 70 (Pomfret Fire and Ambulance)

Station 71 (Eastford Fire)

Town of Woodstock
Station 75 (Muddy Brook Fire)
Station 76 (Woodstock Hill Fire and Ambulance)
Station 77 (Bungay Fire Brigade)

Station 79 (East Putnam Fire)

Town of Thompson
Station 81 (Community Fire and Ambulance)
Station 82 (West Thompson Fire)
Station 83 (Quinebaug Fire)
Station 84 (Thompson Hill Fire)
Station 85 (East Thompson)

Town of Brooklyn
Station 90 (Mort Lake Fire and Ambulance)
Station 92 (East Brooklyn)

Station 93 (Canterbury Fire and Ambulance)

Town of Plainfield
Station 94 (Moosup)
Station 95 (Plainfield)
Station 96 (Atwood Hose)
Station 97 (Central Village)
Moosup/Plainfield Ambulance

and finally the AMR paramedics that serve our 17 towns
QV Medic 1(24hr coverage), QV Medic 2(0800-2000), and QV Medic 3(1700-0100)...

Whhhhhheeeeeewwwww........and believe it or not, I typed that all off memory! LOL

I think the next one I do on dispatch, I will take some pictures...

Start of the week, not sure if it's good....or bad?

Well, apparenty we're starting off the first full week of 2009 with a bang tonight, as an hour into my shift, I took a call from a gentleman in Moosup. It went a little something like this:

Erik: "911, what's your emergency?"

Gentleman: "Yes, I live on Snake Meadow Hill Rd. in Moosup. I just heard a vehicle go past my house at a very fast rate of speed, proceeded by a huge bang. I'd like to talk to the Plainfield Police." Obviously he couldn't see or confirm an accident, so calls like that get transferred to the appropriate police department to investigate.

So I transferred the call to PPD for them to check it out, and waited for the callback from the police requesting services. In the meantime, my partner, who is familliar with the town of Plainfield said calmly, "Someone went down the hill, blew the stop sign and went into the huge stone wall that the guy across the street put up to protect his house."

Two minutes later, sure enough, "We need an ambulance to...", so we dispatch Moosup Fire and Moosup/Plainfield ambulance and sure enough, "Car 294 to QV, we have one car into a stone wall, one patient for transport, minor injuries."

Luckily, it wasn't a serious call, and it's been a decent start to the shift. I also found out when I came in, about my overtime shifts. Our supervisor would email out the schedule in microsoft excel format with open shifts highlighted. The old way they they distributed the overtime was by emails and alpha-numeric pages sent to the part-timers throughout the month, and any leftovers were given to full-timers by seniority rotation. Our supervisor finally realized it was taking a lot of effort to fill shifts, so he finally switched it to "everyone email in their availability for the open shifts with any preferences before the 1st of the month."

So I email all of the shifts I'm available for back to him, minus the weekends I have Hayleigh, and just wait to see what I get. I figured I wouldn't get that many this month, because of the overtime and holidays I've worked the past two months. Well, I was mistaken. Four overtime shifts including eve's tomorrow for a double, and a "holiday worked" shift on Martin Luther King Day! I'm honestly worried about tax time, as I'm not sure if I'll get a big tax refund check, or who knows, I may need to pay into the government seeing that I've probably worked enough overtime this past year to put me into another tax bracket... LMAO

Another busy weekend...

Alright?! So, I know I usually end up posting on a Monday sometimes to update what the weekend was like. Today being Sunday, I'm going to be bold and daring and make a post before the weekend's over! (I know, I can hear the OOOH's and AHHH's, lol)

I'll start with Thursday night, which technically is my Friday midnight shift, which I turned into a double by picking up an open shift for that next morning. I got out Friday afternoon and went over to Rene's house to drop off my paintball equipment for Saturday morning, then proceeded to go home and go to bed. I awoke this morning, bright eyed and chipper, and after stopping at Dunkin Donuts for a coffee, I made my way to the firehouse. Rene offered to drive, so we made a pit stop, picking up Corey(one of our members), and made our way down to Voluntown.

Why were we going to Voluntown, you may ask? Well, several months ago, my dispatch partner, along with members of his department, Moosup Fire Department, and the Plainfield Police Department decided to have a friendly game of paintball. Where, you might ask? Well, they searched around and could have very well played in some one's back yard, but wait... They found a company in Voluntown who has 3 paintball fields, and rents equipment. So, Travis and I planned another event for November 15th. I had posted it at the fire department for interested members to sign up, which some people did, but most either couldn't go, or backed out. So today, it was just the three of us from East Putnam.

So on the way down to Voluntown, my alpha-pager goes off from work, saying that there was an open shift tonight for the midnight shift. I immediately figured out that it was a call out, due to the fact that one of our dispatchers, who is a deputy chief in Scotland, was reported injured in a fire truck crash overnight, while responding to another town for a house fire. Thankfully, from what I heard, he's doing ok, aside from a leg injury. So I figured, what the heck, I already picked up a day shift tomorrow, I might as well pick up the night shift if it hadn't already been taken. So I called work and got the shift. Meanwhile, we pull into the paintball company's parking lot, after veering off the path two different times, and start to get geared up.

Well, we had an absolute blast! They had a conventional "speed ball" course which looked like the ones that you see on ESPN, a non-conventional "speed ball" course, which had things like port-a-potties, washing machines, tires, and barricades. And they also had a wooded course that was around 4 acres, loaded with forts, foxholes, trenches, and even had a camper and mobile home that could be used as shelters/sniper spots/death traps...LOL

So East Putnam Fire, Central Village Fire, Moosup Fire, and Plainfield Police had a great time(men playing like boys) from 10am to around 3pm. Before our last game, three cars full of kids pull up with their parents for a birthday party. One of the Plainfield cops knew the father of one of the kids, so he asked if the kids wanted to play the police officers and firefighters in our last game of paintball. They agreed. So around 12 adults decked out in camouflage went walking into the woods, preparing to fight 12 ten year olds wearing bright colored outfits. You would think we had the advantage, but the little buggers put up a good fight, not to mention one of those kids took me out with a come-out-of-no-where shot to the love handle! Talk about pain after running through the woods for several hours in rain soaked clothing! The kids put up a good battle, but we won with 4 people left.

So we packed up all our equipment, and began the drive home. We dropped Corey off at his house, and then drove to Thompson to get some gas, as it was only $2.09 a gallon there. We then went to the firehouse so I could grab my truck and go home. I was getting ready to go home to bed to rest up for work tonight, when the power at the firehouse went out for around 30 seconds. Minutes later a car pulled into the driveway, stating that a transformer was exploding and arching all over by Wal-mart, so I called work and told them to start a call for service, and we responded with ET-179. Come to find out, the homeowner that lives next to the telephone pole had already called the power company, and there was no more apparent problem safety wise, so we returned to the station. I was getting ready to leave for home again, when I was told the Chief was coming to the station and I had to wait for him because my 6 month probation was up last Thursday. Chief showed up, issued me my department plate, key, and blue light permit, and I scurried home to hit the sack.

So there you have it, my weekend so far. Good thing I slept, because apparently the evening shift was bombarded with calls from the rain storm, and so far we've had nothing on the midnight shift(knock on wood). But either way, I'm here till 4pm, and then I come back in for 12:30am for my regular "Monday" night shift. Also, I'm working Thanksgiving Day, because I'd rather work and get Holiday pay then just have a day off and stuff my face with food. I'm just looking forward to the overtime and holiday pay next pay period, when I can really pay some bills and do some Christmas shopping!!