Sorry for being so quiet lately. I just finished the first draft of a novel about retired firefighters adjusting to life after the fire department.

It's called "Staying Relevant: A Novel of Adjusting to Life After 60".

More info about it when it's finalized.

That being said . . . While writing something the other day, a story crossed my mind. It had to do w/first aid. There were certain boxes that we responded to that seemed to be first aid boxes. A run to 14th Avenue & Bruce Street was a guaranteed first aid response. The box at the corner of Springfield & Court was pulled periodically by a man who had epilepsy. We would pull up & ask him if he was drinking again (the doctors said no alcohol since it could bring on a seizure). He would confess & then tell us he’s going again before suffering another seizure. Back then we were told to insert something into his mouth to prevent him from “swallowing” his tongue. Since we had no tongue suppressors on the rig, we would flatten a nearby beer can, clean it off as best we could, and insert it into his mouth.

When I first arrived in the Union office, I had to field a phone call from the Bergen Record. Dave Giordano & Ray Frost had gone to Fire Headquarters, leaving the novice Union official (I was called the office manager at the time) on his own. This reporter started asking questions about the new role fire departments were being given, first aid. I told her we had been doing first aid in Newark all long. To illustrate this, I told her the following story:

We responded on a box to 14th Avenue & Bergen Street, A woman was in labor. The father pulled the box. Apparently, this was their first child because when asked if her water had broken, she couldn’t say. The father was very nervous & began threatening the captain if he didn’t do something. We called for EMS & they eventually showed before the woman’s water actually broke. Fast forward a few months. We respond on the same box. Upon arrival we’re directed to a second-floor apartment. The same woman we had tended to those months before was in the apartment going crazy. Her new born was lying in a crib. The baby looked perfectly healthy, no sign of anything wrong w/it, but it was dead, apparently a SIDS (sudden infant death syndrome) victim. When EMS arrived & took the baby out, the mother went wild & tried to jump out a window, kicking the glass out after hopping up on the window ledge. We had to take her down & restrain her until EMS could take her to the hospital.

The reporter asked questions & seemed to be taking notes, but my story didn’t help reinforce her story of first aid being new so it didn’t appear in her article.

Guys have given me first aid stories over the years. Chief Freda told the story of a pile up on the Turnpike when he was in Rescue. That one is a little too long for Facebook. A story told to me by Bill Belzger (appointed 1959, left the job to start a fire equipment company), tells the Newark way of first aid concisely.

Belzger: Occasionally, at Seventeen in the summer when you were on the book the neighbors would come in to be treated for cuts & burns & so forth. One time, it scared the life out of me, I’m on the book & the doorbell rang. I opened up the door & a guy says “I’m hurt.” I looked at him. He didn’t seem to have any physical problems. I says, “Well, come on in.” He comes in & he had an axe stuck in the back of his head. I sat him down. I hit the bell to get the captain down & we called the Squad. I don’t know what happened to him.