DesertMedic66
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I receive a phone call on Thursday the 26th saying that we are on stand-by to be deployed to the east coast for hurricane sandy. From that point I make sure my 72 hour to go bag is all put together to go.
On Saturday I receive word that we have a high possibility of being deployed. I call into work and clear up all my questions (my first deployment).
On Sunday I start my normal ALS shift of 0600-1800. At 1600 I get a phone call from my supervisor (Strike Team Leader) that we did get deployed and that we all (22 members) have 90 minutes to get to our deployment location. I call the on duty supervisor and get cleared in early. I take off from work stop by my house and pick up my to go bag and continue on to the location. It was about 65 miles from where I was working at so I had no time to spare.
We fill out paperwork and then hop in our transportation to the airport. The pilot and flight crew let us board the plane first. During the flight to Ohio they make an announcement about us being deployed and we get applause from the rest of the passengers. As the flight lands the flight crew all shake our hands and give us bottles of water as we are walking off the plane.
We cram 28 (met up with 6 members from a different county) of us into 7 ambulances and start our drive to Fort Dix in NJ. As we get closer to NJ we are passing semi trucks that are flipped over from the wind. 5 of our ambulances lost a full windshield wiper (blade and metal arm) but we continue to push on.
It's getting to the point where we are thinking about parking and seeking shelter anywhere. Then we receive a phone call from NATCOM (national communications) telling us that we are being diverted up to Fort Stewart in Upstate NY. They tell us to haul butt and out run the storm.
We arrive at fort Stewart 16 hours after our plane landed. We commandeer a training room at the Fort and sleep for a couple of hours. We wake up 5-6 hours later and meet up with 7 other ambulances and start our drive to NJ. roads are closed and we are being stopped at toll stations and having to pay. We call NATCOM and they advise us to start going code 3 all the way to NJ and to run thru any toll stations without paying.
We are going around road closed signs and traveling thru flooded roadways. We end up stopping at meeting up with a NY state trooper who gives us an escort all the way to Fort Dix. Once at fort Dix we start stalking the ambulances to FEMA levels with the gear we had. Our ambulance has and old school lifepak 10 monitor with no defib gel or lead cables (wonderful). After we get everyone all stocked we receive word that NJ is able to handle a lot of the aftermath without our assistance so we are now heading to the Floyd Bennett Airfield in NY.
We all start arriving in Floyd Bennett Airfield (our Forward Operating Base, FOB). At this point we get an evacuation mission from Goldwater SNF to Goldwater Hospital on Roosevelt Island. We sent 2 strike teams on this mission (10 ambulances). Everywhere we go we have to go lights and sirens and no one pulls over for us at all.
At the end of this mission I have been up for 96+ hours with only a 2 hour nap on the plane. So everyone on my strike team is wiped out. We head back to the FOB to go to staging. After another 2 hour nap we wake up to the Staging Manager banging on our hood saying to go see the Incident Commander.
My supervisor gets placed on the Incident Management Team (IMT) due to him having ICS 300 & 400. The also decide to move my medic partner and myself (on the same unit as our supervisor) up to the IMT as well. So that took us from an unknown schedule of working to working 12 hour shifts 7 days a week.
We had a total of 373 ambulances (mostly ALS) along with 20+ support vehicles and 15 fuel tanker trucks.
Around day 4 we were sending out missions that consisted of 100+ ambulances. This went on until day 19 of the deployment. Days started to blur together. Around day 6 we had to start having law enforcement escort our ambulances due to citizens trying to take equipment and fuel from them. We also had the noreastern hit us which dropped 6 inches of snow. We were still running missions during the storm.
Around day 6 is also when we had restrooms delivered and showers delivered. The laundry trailer arrived around 10. Laundry service was shut down by the health department around day 15 due to it not having a secure gray water holding tank. We also started getting catered food (3 meals a day) on day 6. Before then we were eating MREs or fast food places that were still open.
The cities power grids were horrible. It took forever for power to get restored and fuel to get to the gas stations. When fuel finally came to the stations people were waiting 6+ hours to get fuel. Some gas stations were charging $7 per gallon.
Once fuel came and power was back on the area started to recover quicker. The president landed in New York and we sent 2 ambulances to do medical coverage (mainly to just show our presence).
We had 1 ambulance lost to water, 1 ambulance blew a motor, 1 ambulance dropped a transmission, and 3 ambulances were sideswiped by Taxi cabs.
On day 18 we started the demobilization process (sending units home). By day 20 we only had 50 ambulances still remaining at the FOB. On day 21 we were all demobilized. We left 75 ambulances in Brooklyn, NY and then were shuttled to local airports.
On the flights home we had the same treatment by the airline staff (going over the PA system and telling the passengers what we did and then having everyone give us a round of applause).
All in all it was a good experience and I will not forget it anytime soon.
I would like to say thank you to FDNY for letting us stock supplies from them, use their showers, and just being really nice in general. Also the hospitals in NY for letting us raid their supplies and using their showers.
On Saturday I receive word that we have a high possibility of being deployed. I call into work and clear up all my questions (my first deployment).
On Sunday I start my normal ALS shift of 0600-1800. At 1600 I get a phone call from my supervisor (Strike Team Leader) that we did get deployed and that we all (22 members) have 90 minutes to get to our deployment location. I call the on duty supervisor and get cleared in early. I take off from work stop by my house and pick up my to go bag and continue on to the location. It was about 65 miles from where I was working at so I had no time to spare.
We fill out paperwork and then hop in our transportation to the airport. The pilot and flight crew let us board the plane first. During the flight to Ohio they make an announcement about us being deployed and we get applause from the rest of the passengers. As the flight lands the flight crew all shake our hands and give us bottles of water as we are walking off the plane.
We cram 28 (met up with 6 members from a different county) of us into 7 ambulances and start our drive to Fort Dix in NJ. As we get closer to NJ we are passing semi trucks that are flipped over from the wind. 5 of our ambulances lost a full windshield wiper (blade and metal arm) but we continue to push on.
It's getting to the point where we are thinking about parking and seeking shelter anywhere. Then we receive a phone call from NATCOM (national communications) telling us that we are being diverted up to Fort Stewart in Upstate NY. They tell us to haul butt and out run the storm.
We arrive at fort Stewart 16 hours after our plane landed. We commandeer a training room at the Fort and sleep for a couple of hours. We wake up 5-6 hours later and meet up with 7 other ambulances and start our drive to NJ. roads are closed and we are being stopped at toll stations and having to pay. We call NATCOM and they advise us to start going code 3 all the way to NJ and to run thru any toll stations without paying.
We are going around road closed signs and traveling thru flooded roadways. We end up stopping at meeting up with a NY state trooper who gives us an escort all the way to Fort Dix. Once at fort Dix we start stalking the ambulances to FEMA levels with the gear we had. Our ambulance has and old school lifepak 10 monitor with no defib gel or lead cables (wonderful). After we get everyone all stocked we receive word that NJ is able to handle a lot of the aftermath without our assistance so we are now heading to the Floyd Bennett Airfield in NY.
We all start arriving in Floyd Bennett Airfield (our Forward Operating Base, FOB). At this point we get an evacuation mission from Goldwater SNF to Goldwater Hospital on Roosevelt Island. We sent 2 strike teams on this mission (10 ambulances). Everywhere we go we have to go lights and sirens and no one pulls over for us at all.
At the end of this mission I have been up for 96+ hours with only a 2 hour nap on the plane. So everyone on my strike team is wiped out. We head back to the FOB to go to staging. After another 2 hour nap we wake up to the Staging Manager banging on our hood saying to go see the Incident Commander.
My supervisor gets placed on the Incident Management Team (IMT) due to him having ICS 300 & 400. The also decide to move my medic partner and myself (on the same unit as our supervisor) up to the IMT as well. So that took us from an unknown schedule of working to working 12 hour shifts 7 days a week.
We had a total of 373 ambulances (mostly ALS) along with 20+ support vehicles and 15 fuel tanker trucks.
Around day 4 we were sending out missions that consisted of 100+ ambulances. This went on until day 19 of the deployment. Days started to blur together. Around day 6 we had to start having law enforcement escort our ambulances due to citizens trying to take equipment and fuel from them. We also had the noreastern hit us which dropped 6 inches of snow. We were still running missions during the storm.
Around day 6 is also when we had restrooms delivered and showers delivered. The laundry trailer arrived around 10. Laundry service was shut down by the health department around day 15 due to it not having a secure gray water holding tank. We also started getting catered food (3 meals a day) on day 6. Before then we were eating MREs or fast food places that were still open.
The cities power grids were horrible. It took forever for power to get restored and fuel to get to the gas stations. When fuel finally came to the stations people were waiting 6+ hours to get fuel. Some gas stations were charging $7 per gallon.
Once fuel came and power was back on the area started to recover quicker. The president landed in New York and we sent 2 ambulances to do medical coverage (mainly to just show our presence).
We had 1 ambulance lost to water, 1 ambulance blew a motor, 1 ambulance dropped a transmission, and 3 ambulances were sideswiped by Taxi cabs.
On day 18 we started the demobilization process (sending units home). By day 20 we only had 50 ambulances still remaining at the FOB. On day 21 we were all demobilized. We left 75 ambulances in Brooklyn, NY and then were shuttled to local airports.
On the flights home we had the same treatment by the airline staff (going over the PA system and telling the passengers what we did and then having everyone give us a round of applause).
All in all it was a good experience and I will not forget it anytime soon.
I would like to say thank you to FDNY for letting us stock supplies from them, use their showers, and just being really nice in general. Also the hospitals in NY for letting us raid their supplies and using their showers.
