Chatting with Brandon

I started the morning out getting an oil change for my truck. I was at home making lunch when I got a call from Brandon. He is looking at buying a gun and he was out looking at some.

Later on when I was making dinner he called again. But I was on my way to Colfax for the coroner’s training. We talked about the guns he looked at. He is looking to getting a revolver.

When I was getting to Colfax the ambulance was getting ready to leave and a lot of people were showing up. I turned on my radio and heard it was a car wreck. I went to the station and watched the rescue leave. I was there for a little bit when a second ambulance was requested. I called Pete and told him what was going on. He said I could go.

It turned out that the second ambulance was needed. We were turned around, but we set up flares because we were nearly on the scene.

I got back for training in plenty of time. The training was good, we covered some recent cases. After the training was over with I went to Colfax Fire and hung out watching some TV shows with Ralph.

When CSI was over with I went home.

Spending the Day with Ken

I went to Colfax fire today because I had the day off of work and because I wanted to help Ken with his report and follow up from yesterday’s case. I advised Ken on things to write in his narrative and checked it when he was done writing it.

I was also hanging out waiting for a call to come in. Before I had to leave we did have a call come in. It was a low level call. We didn’t do a lot, but we did transport.

I had to head back to Pullman to work the WSU Volleyball game. It was the last game of the season. They were playing Oregon State. When we got to D street and Colorado I saw lights flashing inside Bohler Gym. I said it looked like a fire alarm. Reed said “they haven’t dispatched one.” Then it was dispatched. We investigated it. It was burnt popcorn. We helped to get everything reset and watched the matches.

The Cougs went on to win in five games. It was need to see.

Thanksgiving with Friends

This afternoon I met up with Russell, Denise, Beren, Sauce, and Mireum for Thanksgiving dinner. We had a great meal fixed by Denise. I was also on call for the coroner.

As it turned out I got a case around nine-thirty. I called up Ken and picked him up on my way to Endicott for the case. It was natural. This is my second case on a Thanksgiving. Last year I got one as well. Last years’ was a natural crash that turned into a car running off the road.

Tonights case took Ken and I into the wee hours of the morning to investigate the whole thing. This was Ken’s first real case where he was taking the lead. I had to help him out with certain parts along the way. But he did good overall.

After the case I went to Russells’ to get a piece of pie. I missed the rest of the night. They thought they would still be there. But as it turned out they all left about forty minutes before I got there. I ate the pie quickly and then went home.

The Next Whitman County Coroner?

Russell needed a ride to the airport today so I had planned on giving him around there around eleven in the morning. We stopped by Sam Dial to get his watch then I dropped him off. He was thankful for the ride.

In the evening I headed to Colfax for the Coroners meeting. The softball game was cancelled tonight due to the rain, so I was able to get there on time. I was early so I was reading a book on forensics.

Everyone else showed up soon thereafter. The meeting got going. We reviewed a case that Pete is going to be going to court over. We also got our coverage set up for the next two months. I also went over the case I had on Monday.

After the meeting was over I was told Pete that I wanted to be the next coroner. I told him that I thought Patti would be the next one, but with her moving to Spokane soon and her leaving the office I figured I would like to get in to it.

Pete said he was happy to hear that I would like to do it. He said he plans on not running in twenty-twelve. So that would be when I would need to run. By then some of the other guys would be a lot more trained and may want to run as well. So I figured I would talk to Pete right away and have him start to groom me to be the next coroner.

Full Circle

This morning my pager was going off for a echo response for a CPR in progress outside of Pullman. Bien and I went to the scene. I assisted in doing chest compressions for a while on scene plus in the back of the ambulance to the hospital. I did more chest compressions at the hospital. After more than an hour since the incident starting the doctor called it in the hospital. This is the second time in Pullman since I started when I have been there in the hospital when it was called. I had the same reaction. Sadness. I was hopping we could keep fighting until we won. But we didn’t.

I went back to the station when Pete called me about it. I started to do the investigation with the help of one of the new deputy coroners, Bill. We did a full investigation. When I went back to the hospital the respirator therapist gave me a look like he was surprised to see me back. I looked at him and said, matter of factly, “My brother works for the fire department.” Later on when I was in the nurses area he was looking real hard at me. Later a nurse told me the respirator therapist was amazed how much me and my “brother” looked. He couldn’t tell us apart.

When the case was done I went to the radio station to do my show. I had a guest coming in to talk with me about an article he wrote for the Evergreen where he supported Thompson for president. I spent nearly the whole time talking to him on the radio. At two o’clock PM the guy who was supposed to replace me never showed up. I stayed for a little bit, but I finally had to leave.

While at home I responded on more calls. One was a fire alarm. One was a car accident. One was a motorcycle accident, and finally someone who fell. I got back in time to get ready for training for tonight.

We were doing airway for OTEP tonight. It was the same class I had last month in Colfax. When the lecture was done I was able to do some evaluations on people doing their skills. It was my first time to do that since taking the EMS Evaluator class.

George thanked me for taking the role seriously and doing a good job evaluating people. When we went over the test I knew two answers we had from the Colfax class was different from what everyone agreed to in Pullman. So I looked up the answers and pointed them out to George. He said he would update everyone on the correct answers.

Second Coroner Training

Today in Colfax we had our second coroner training. We went through some more cases and handed out the equipment to everyone. We talked about the case that Ken and I had. He talked about his experiences.

I spent some time this afternoon at the fire department playing Ghost Recon with Rich and Reed. That was pretty fun. I am still driving the Bumblebee around. It was pretty hot today.

It is funny, as I drive the Bumblebee around now I am always so worried about getting in an accident. Because I realize that should I be in one, I probably will be baddly injured or killed. It is interesting that I think about that the whole time I am in it as we drive down the highway to and from Colfax.

Fall Co-ed Softball

I was going to meet up with Nick to have him read through some stuff I wrote for the Town Crier III. I am going to apply for a position to write for the Daily News. It is a weekly column called the Town Crier. There are thirteen people, so you end up writing four times a year. I went to Avery hall thinking the writing lab was there. But it was moved. So I got some lunch while I was up there.

I got home and Tyson was around the house from school today. I asked if he was going to go on calls. He said if they were higher level calls. I was going to head to the writing lab, but an Echo call came out. Tyson and I went on it. We ended up doing CPR. It turned out the person did not make it, so Pete had me do some coroner related stuff with it. I needed to find out if the doctor would be willing to sign off on the death. He was, so we did not take jurisdiction.

We got called from the hospital to another call. We got on scene and helped to package the patient then we were cleared.

I got home and ended up spending over an hour on a conference call. We were estimating time on the things we need to do for the next release. Finally just after five we broke the meeting and said we would continue it tomorrow.

I sat around waiting for the softball game. I was looking forward to playing. The game was at ten o’clock in Moscow. I was the starting second baseman. I missed one ball I should have gotten. My first at bat was ugly as well. But then after that I did a little better. I felt a little more at ease up to hit, but I still did not feel one hundred percent.

We were winning until the final inning. We had a six run lead. But a severely bad call at second base cost us an out that would have ended the game. That allowed them to extend their inning and make the necessary hits to come back and beat us. That really sucked.

First Case for the New Deputy Coroner

I was sitting at the computer when the tones went out for an unattended death in Pullman. I listened in. It wasn’t more than about thirty minutes that I was getting a call from Pete about a case in Pullman he wanted me to do. I contacted both deputy coroners. Ken was able to make it.

He drove up to Pullman and we went to the scene and did our investigation. It took some extra time due to going slower for Ken’s sake. When Bob from Kimballs got to the scene I saw it was the old Bob that worked there a few years ago. It was good to see him.

We went to the funeral home to finish up our investigation. Ken did well and was able to understand what we were doing. After talking to Pete we wrapped up our investigation. I went home and started on the paperwork.

Loren got a hold of me and we met up at Rico’s for a little while. It was good to see him. I also saw Bruce from Cougster. He looked very good.

Welcome to the new Deputy Coroners

I got my bugs done for the day sort of early so I headed to Colfax early. I figured I would spend some time at the fire station in case of a call. Turns out we did not get a call, but I got to hang with and speak with Ralph for a little while. When it got closer to time for the coroners meeting I went to get some dinner from Arby’s.

I got to the office and I was the first there. Close to the time for the meeting I went to the side door to let the two new deputy coroner’s inside. We have Bill and Ken joining us. Ken is with Colfax fire and Bill was a captain at Pullman fire when I started on the department.

We went through the meeting in the normal way we do it a mix of joking, side tracks, war stories, and learning. I enjoy the meetings.

At the end of the meeting Pete and I were talking about the Easter Massacre. I was telling him about the research that I had done about it in the past. I told him about the shootings and how the official report said that the shooter committed suicide. Pete got interested in it and he is going to look up some information, whatever he can find. We might be going somewhere with this. Stay tuned for that.

Long Weekend Nearly Over

I was on call for the corner’s office today, but it was really quite as it normally is. We don’t get a lot of calls each month. Usually on average one or two that we investigate.

I had spoken to Chapman about the fact that it seemed like our rig checks on A-shift did not go very well. Many times I felt like people were skimming through things. We would get done when I wasn’t there in record times. So I knew a good job was not being done. He said he gives people sheets. When they are done with the sheet they had to sign the sheet that they did it. That was later on if something was missed I could go to the person involved and talk to him about it. Doing that made the rig checks take longer than normal for our shift. It seemed like everyone did really well and we got stuff taken care of.

New Deputy Coroners

Today at the coroners meeting it was announced that Ken and Bill will be coming aboard the coroners office as new deputy coroners. Also that when Patti leaves Pete may pick up one more.

In the mean time he is going to have the new guys go out with Patti and I on cases to learn how we do things out there. I am a little nervous to have someone overlooking what I am doing, because I still feel very green when it comes to it. Granted compared to when I started I feel very good about my skills, but it seems that there is so much more that I need to know.

We had dinner at Eddys and talked about some recent cases. I went to Colfax Fire and spoke with Jenny as well as Dale from the jail for a while before I left Colfax.

Final City Softball Game of the Season

I asked and got permission to leave work early to get back to Pullman. We had our final softball games of the season tonight. We are in a situation of win and play, or lose and go home.

I hit the road and was trying to make time. I got to Pullman around five-twenty. I left Bellevue around one in the afternoon. So not too bad of a trip time. I got my uniform on and went to the playfields. We were playing against Kimmel. En route to the playfields I got a call from Pete about an industrial accident in Pullman. So I gave him some info about how to get to the scene and I told him I would call when I was done with softball.

We could not get a rally going. We scored in three innings and each inning we only scored one person. It was a dismal performance for us out there. I was disappointed. I was batting last and playing EH. So I didn’t get to do too much. In fact I didn’t really do a darn thing. My at bats were both outs.

After the game was done I got my coveralls on and went to the scene. It was at the end of Terre View Drive. I helped to process the scene, then I went to the funeral home where we examing the injuries and made our final determinations about what happened.

Following that I went to the Zuu to meet up with the team for Jersey Night. We started at My Office, but I was not able to be there because of the coroner’s case. But I met up with them at the Zuu. I got a burger and some pop. We sat around for hours. We played some quarters while people were trying to drink.

Then it was off to Val Halla. We were there until nearly one-thirty in the morning.

Fatal Car Wreck

They are not happening like they use to, but we still get them from time to time. We got another one today. I was listening to my scanner when Colfax got dispatched out to it. While I was listening to the updates it because clear it was a fatal wreck.

I spoke with Pete who told me to take the case. I let Whitcom know and I got en route to the scene. On the way I heard Colfax fire saying they wanted water brought out. So I stopped at the fire station on my way through town to take the stuff out there. While going there I heard that three birds were brought in for the survivors.

I investigated the scene and did my report. I did not get home until pretty late after making my phone calls and writing my report.

I had to get home and get to bed, I was not going to be getting a lot of sleep. While I was in bed, I got two phone calls after midnight by people who know I normally stay up late, but due to having to be up early I was actually sleeping this time.

First Coroners Meeting this Summer

I had to get several things done today. I needed to cash some checks. Put money from one bank to another to pay for the laptop computer. I also planned on getting the license for my boat today.

But around one in the afternoon a call came out for a tree on fire. I wasn’t going to go, but when they asked for Rescue I went to the station to find it was not even there. Bien came down and we went to the scene. We took the old Rescue. It was a pretty good sized grass fire.

It was pretty much out when we got there. But we helped with some of the overhaul. Then we helped get one of the engines back in service.

After that call I got cleaned up and did my bank runs followed by a trip to Colfax. After the licensing of my boat I went to the jail. I was there for a few minutes when a call for the fire department went out. I ran over and got in with Ken in the engine. We did not transport. I was back at the station hanging out until it was time for dinner.

I grabbed some food and went to the coroners office for our first meeting in a couple months. It was Patti’s last regular meeting as she is moving to Spokane. It was not be the same without her around. I am now going to be the senior Deputy Coroner. Pete is planning on hiring two or maybe three people. We talked about the people on the list. We gave the pros and cons of the people on the list that we knew. Pete is going to work on the decision for the final hirings.

I then went back to Pullman. My ankle was killing me and I was thinking about not responding, but I decided that I was not going to be a whimp. I did wrap it and ice it. That really helped. After about a half hour of that the pain was nearly gone.

I went to bed around midnight. The tones went off for a motorcycle accident on SR one-ninety-four. I talked to a deputy on the scene and he said he just happened on the accident. He was doing something else and he just found the motorcycle laying there and it was one fire and someone was sitting there. That was our only call of the night.

Good Morning Pete

Rather than sleeping in a little bit, after being up to four-thirty in the morning, Pete had a different idea. He called me up to let me know of a case of a death in Colfax.

Turned out it was one of the people who live in Paul’s Place. He was well known around town and always was helping to keep the streets and parking lots clean. A lot of people were sad when they found out about his death.

When I was done working that case a while after the noon hour I went home and tried to get caught up with stuff there. That is when Jim called me about playing softball against Steptoe Fire in the morning and getting some breakfast.

Because I now have to be in Colfax at eight in the morning and I didn’t get a lot of sleep anyway, I decided that I would make it an early night. I did start my laundry. I had several loads to get through. I got those washing as I relaxed downstairs and while I made some dinner on the grill.

Three Hours Later

I went to bed and only three hours later my cell phone was ringing. It was six-thirty in the morning. I was being called to an unattended death near Hooper. That is in the western-most part of Whitman County. In fact while driving there typically you drive into Adams county then South back into Whitman County. I was on scene for just under an hour. Then I went back to the funeral home and did my work there. I went to the coroner’s office following that to do my report and print everything off. By the time I was done it was after the noon hour. I went to Colfax fire and hung out for a few minutes.

David, Craig, and I were there. I was pointing out the last time it was just us and the guy on duty we got… then Craig said “don’t say it.” David and him both remembered that we got that fatal accident that I was IC of.

I went back to Pullman and down to the fire station for daily rig checks. We got those knocked off in a couple hours of time. It was very hot outside and inside the bay. We had a total of four people helping. For about a half hour of the shift neither Brian nor I could be on duty. That is why we did the rig checks early.

I went to my softball game and Brian was finishing his up. Brian left to be on duty and we took the dug out. We were playing our first regular season game after nearly three weeks off duty to a rain out and a week off for Memorial Day.

We started sort of slow, but then picked it up and hit the ball well. We went on to twelve run the other team and currently, with pre-season included we are undefeated.

I went home and got ready to be on call for the fire department. Then I went to Brandon and Peter’s to play some poker with them. At one point I lost a lot of money on one hand where I had the same hand and someone else by I got out-kicked.

I went down to under a dollar and sat around that level for quiet a while. Some people thought I would just go all-in on nothing. But I waited for my hand then I would play it. I ended up winning each time I did end up going all-in. Finally it was nearing the end of the night. I walked out only down four dollars. Not too bad for having been sitting at thirty-five cents for a little bit.

Two Hours of Sleep and then…

So after getting to sleep my phone rings. Patti is waking me up. She told me there was an unattended death in Steptoe. That is the last thing I wanted to hear. I was so tired. I did not want to get out of bed.

Finally I did get up and headed out the door. I stopped to get some pop and made my way to the scene. When I got there I went inside where the power was out through out the town. I had to have people holding flashlights to see. By the time I was done with the scene it was light outside.

From there it was off to the funeral home. I spent some time there doing more investigation. I was stuck on the phone with Pete for about half an hour. Then I went to Colfax Fire to show them the photos from the funeral from yesterday.

I headed home. I was in Harlow’s dip when Vinny turned on me. He was on a motorcycle. I heard him radio to Whitcom that he was stopping me. I was pulled over near the North Bypass. He came walking up. When he got close enough to see me in the mirror he started to smile from ear to ear. He walked to the window saying “I thought I had my first of the day!” He then sent me on my way.

I got home and pretty much went straight to bed. I was very tired. I slept for a couple hours until my phone rang. It was Chapman telling me about Rescue getting a door ripped off the officer side that folds up. So I went to the station to take a look. Our old Rescue was put into service until that is fixed.

I got ahold of Blank’s, who did the deed to the door, on IM. We talked about it. Sounded like that was the cherry on top of a very bad day for him. We chatted for a few minutes.

I was invited by Phil to play poker at his place. He owns a condo at Wheatridge condos. He lives in Brian Turner’s old place. It is a nice place with the wood laminate flooring, natural counter tops, and a lifesized stuffed Cougar. Several friends of Phil showed up and we played cards for about two hours. I would say for most of them they are novices at best. It was slow going as the conversation and other action too precedence over the game itself.

We finished up when they all wanted to go to the bar around midnight. I left up a couple bucks. Not as good as I show have done considering who was there.

The Funeral and After

My other post talks about the funeral itself, so I will not go into that here. But I started out the day at six in the morning with a phone call to WSU PD. I found out I would be able to get a ride. I got dressed in my uniform from the coroners office. I went to Tidyman’s and waited for the precession.

Following the funeral I went home and worked on a problem with the events signup that Heston had found. I figured out the problem and fixed it. I went to the house that I have been looking at buying. I did some measurements of the area. I see it will fit in the room that is downstairs. I looked around the other rooms that are out there as well. I was told today that someone else is putting in an offer, possibly. I hate it when people do that. I am going to take the stance that if the real estate agent says that to me I will have the attitude that I lost all interest in the house. One of the things about the house today is that I could smell some signs of the dogs that lived there.

I also noticed that outside of the big rec room and the great room, there was not a lot of options for how to set up my furniture. Plus being only four bedrooms I would only be able to have at most two roommates as I would have to use one room as an office.

The house on Thomas street has made me realize some of the shortcomings of this house over all. I also don’t like the appliances that are at this house. Thomas street has four bedrooms plus an office. Plus a rec room, game room, and living room. Plus two dining areas. It is a nicer house over all in my view. It is the house I would like to have. The one thing that it doesn’t have is the larger driveway that Brandon street has.

Then it was time to head to the fire department for rig checks. I got to the station and talked to Pete on the phone about the funeral and the house search. I went into the station and I was talking to Morgan about some stuff while Peter and I were texting back and forth about playing some poker at my place tonight.

Morgan said he would play. I went to get some pop and got some dinner then I went home. I was going to call Phil about coming over. Just as I was calling him he sent me a text message about play at his place. When it was all said and done he ended up coming over to my place. I also got JT and his friend. Plus Brandon. So I had a seven handed table going. I was on call with Morgan. We got called out on two calls through out the night of playing cards.

When the night was over with I had won almost thirty bucks. It was a good night for me to play some cards. I went upstairs and did some stuff in my den before going to be at two in the morning.

Strange Coroner’s Case

I spent several hours today working on the softball stats Excel workbook. There are a lot of little changes I was making. I added some new columns. I also added in some new calculations. It took a while to get it done, I am happy now that it is done. As I was working I would make a change, save everything, then I would find something small that was messed up, so I would have to fix that, but every little small detail had to be duplicated time and time again, so even small changes were actually large changes.

I also responded to fire calls. We had two nearly back to back. On the second one Wilcox joined Dearth and I on it. We went code through town. They took Wilcox with them to the hospital. Dearth was closest to the door of the ambulance, but he deferred to Wilcox saying he didn’t have the correct shirt on. I told Dearth that if he was going to not do the work he has to do, because of wearing the wrong shirt, he should not respond on the call.

I got home and finished up my stats sheet. I was going to get some dinner when Pete called about a case in Colfax. I told him I would respond down to it. I got to the hospital parking lot. I talked to the RP and Colfax Officer. Then I took my photos and had the funeral home come for the removal.

I went to Paul’s Place afterwords. I went through the deceased’s room looking for information and things that could explain what happened. Following Paul’s Place I went to the funeral home and checked the body. I did not find anything of note. We are going to have an autopsy due to the fact that the man is pretty young to just die.

Plus, the interesting part is that he was in a van coming back from Spokane. He was with several other people. He threw up. Then later on the driver asked another passenger if the deceased was okay. The passenger said, “yeah, he is just sleeping”. It wasn’t another half hour until the death was discovered.

When that was all done, I didn’t get home until after midnight. I didn’t have plans for the evening, but that didn’t give me a choice.

Small Fire at NU

Today I was planning on cutting out early and heading to the jail to put in some time when I got a call about a major problem with one of our biggest customers. We had one week to fix it or they would have to shut down the site which would mean we would lose them. Because of that I stayed at work. I also got a call from Pete about someone found at the river.

I worked until I got the problem solved. I was unable to get away to even help Pete by going to the river. But I did make plans to meet him at the funeral home. I then had to find someone who could come over and run my poker game until I got back. I called Andy, and he said he would do it.

I went to Kimball Funeral Home and waited for Pete to arrive. There was an odor from the garage when the person was, but Craig had sprayed some pleasant smelling stuff all around.

I put some Vics under my nose. Actually, I put a lot there. Then we opened the body bag. The sight was bad. The person had been dead for about forty days in the water. This is my first “floater”, as they say. It was pretty graphic. Pete and I checked everything over to see if we could find any markings or damage that would make us believe that there was some perimortem trauma involved. But we did not find any.

I left there and went to my house to find a full table of poker players. They had been there for about two hours. I got in on the action. It took a while but I finally started to win a little bit. I ended the night winning a little bit of money. *knock on wood* I have been doing pretty well at poker lately. I am playing a little more aggressive, but I am still playing smart. I am not making bad plays. I am making some good plays, and I am getting to know people and how they play.

A former co-worker died today

I was at home doing some work on my computer. I bought a new webhosting account. I wanted to get some more storage space and it was cheaper to get a whole new account than to buy extra space. So I did that. They were having special where I could get more space and free setup. I took advantage of those specials.

While that was going on I heard a call go out in Colfax for a CPR in progress call. From what it sounded like the person was already cool to the touch so I figured the ambulance would show up and then leave. But then I heard them ask for Steptoe to come and help. Then I heard them go en route to the hospital.

A while later I was getting ready to head to Colfax and I got a call from Pete. A guy I use to work with at the Sheriff’s Office, Kirk Banks, was the deceased. I was sort of shocked. He was still pretty young.

I went to the Coroner’s office to get some stuff turned in as well as download some photos that Pete asked me to download. I also picked up the new camera. I got the one with the big zoom and everything else. I was stoked. I started to read about how to use the features.

I went to Taco Time for some tacos then to the fire station. I ate my food and waited for the meeting to start. We were doing stuff with the new tower we are trying to get put in. We were mainly at the meeting for support. It was a hearing to determine whether we could get a conditional use permit to install the tower that is needed to get what we need done. There were some nearby homeowners who were not happy about it and they were there to try to stop it. But in the end we got the tower approved.

Then I went to the SO and did some time on the treadmill and watched House before coming back to Pullman.

When I got home I worked some on my asp.net applications as well as trying to get the stuff from Will to work. I am not having any luck on it.

Second Seven In the Morning in a Row

After waking up around one-thirty in the afternoon, I went to my computer to start to write the case report on the coroners case I worked last night. It took a little bit of time to work on the paperwork, answer some incoming phone calls, and keep up with various online conversations, but I finally completed it and E-mailed it to Pete.

When that was finally done I was just doing some stuff around the house until it was time to go to the fire station for the daily rig checks. One of the new guys was there so I made sure he knew how to do the rig checks and let him do most of the work so he knew what to look for.

Brian and I had been talking about CISD’s and the need for them and when one is needed. We also discussed going to Wesson’s retirement party. We made our way up there a little after seven o’clock pm, because dinner should have been done by then. We listened to the funny stories where Wesson was involved.

Finally I got a camera to take some pictures for Dragoo. I went around and snapped about one hundred pics in the next twenty minutes or so. We went back to the station and I had mentioned that it had been quiet. I figured that a call would come out and make people have to leave the retirement party.

When we got the rig back to the station I did my timecard and went home. I was trying to find some information online when we got dispatched to a lady who was assaulted. When we got onscene the ambulance cancelled us. We went back to the station. I went back home and worked some more to find the hoses and connectors I was looking for to use around the house.

That is when another call came in for a car accident. It was one Two-Seventy near mile post eight. A car had read-ended some of the construction rigs. When we pulled up on scene the car was about thirty feet off the road way. I was curious how this happened. Then after looking at the front of the car we could see there were two impact points. The driver had hit the plow blade of this big tractor. The car hit it and it made a deep narrow dent in the car. Then there was a second dent nearly identical to it about eighteen inches away.

From standing at the front of the car you could see where the gravel and dirt mixture had a slight disruption of the color, where the tires had driven across the gravel. You could actually see two sets of tire tracks about eighteen inches apart. It became clear that the car hit the tractor plow blade, then backed up and hit it again.

We went to the hospital to get Zettler who went with the ambulance. As we were leaving the hospital we got called out to a fire alarm at Terrel library, which is the new library next to Holland. They finally named it after about ten years of being called the new library.

When we got on scene we were first there, aside from the WSU cops. We could not see nor smell anything. I thought to myself, that even though on calls like this most of the people go in without SCBA and whatnot, that we should for good measure, but instead we went in like everyone else always does when appears to be a false call.

We talked to the cops and then Engine-thirty-two got onscene, we invited Clint to come in and play. He had the alarm key that allowed us to work the system. We found where the alarm was coming from. It was stairwell “C” on the first floor. We made our way there. When we went into the main room of the library on the first floor across the room I could see some hazy smoke in the air. We got closer and found that indeed it was smoke. Brian checked the door for heat.

Feeling none he opened it up staying low. There was a lot of smoke in the stairwell. We did not want to go into the environment without SCBA. And of course we left it in the rig. So we had to go out and get on air. When we made entry into the stairwell we made notification that we went on air. We went up and down the stairs and could not find the source of the smoke. The stairwell had a door that also lead to the CUB. That door was cracked open because of an extension cord that caused the door to not shut fully. After we made entry I noticed the smoke was not as bad. We allowed the building to naturally vent.

After a few minutes the stairwell was clear enough to reset the alarm. The main library area still had a good haze, but that would go away over some time of the HVAC system running. We had to fill our air bottles. Then went back to the Deuce as the sun was starting to rise. I went home and waited until seven o’clock to go to bed, just like yesterday.

In The Playoffs!

I had a couple guests on the show today to talk about the Outside the Wire movie that was shown by the College Republicans on campus. The “open minded” Democrats and Progressives took up seats in the front row and staged a walk out before the movie was shown. How nice that they actual see what they hate.

We had our softball playoff game. We were playing a team we beat in the regular season. We went out there pretty much easily beat them again. That means that we will be going to round two of the playoffs against Kelly’s team. Ryan said he is going to come down for that game because he wanted to play against Kelly.

I was at home and working on the stats for the team. I also was cruising around the net as well as watching some TV. I finally found my way to bed at three-thirty in the morning. Before I was even deeply sleeping I got a phone call. It was about four in the morning it was Pete. There was a death in Pullman he wanted me to look into.

It appeared to be a natural involving an elderly person. But there were some questions about why there was a delay in contacting us from the time of death. Pete said to let Pullman PD know what was going on. I called Whitcom to let them know what I was doing.

I got on scene and I got a call from Pullman PD. They were going to have to investigate because the person was not in hospice. So I waited for the first officer to show up. It was Heidi. When she got on scene she started to run my truck plate. I heard her over the radio. I looked back and then she said disregard. I also hear the Sgt request Pullman Ambulance show up.

We went to the house and introduced ourselves. We did our investigation. The ambulance showed up. I made sure they did not do anything to the body, like running a strip, like they like to do. They pretty much showed up and left.

I spent the next couple hours getting information and waiting for the detectives to show up. They got on scene around six in the morning. We went to the room to investigate the body and get photographs. I was out of there around seven in the morning. I went home and got a bowl of cereal before going to bed.

Pete was thinking it would be a quick hour or so, but it turned into nearly three hours.

Late for Training

After talking with Brown on Monday my understanding is that training for ventilation would be on Wednesday. But at around one o’clock I got a call asking if I was coming down. I told Howell I would be right down. I was not as ready as I would have liked to have been, but I was able to do an okay job with everything.

After that was done I went home and continued to work on getting the presentation put together with the readings from the book as well as other sources. I also found a couple videos that I was thinking about showing.

Then it was time to go to the CISD in reference to the fatal car accident from Sunday night. That is my third one in less than one year. Honestly I have not had to go to them for myself, but I feel like by being there I am showing support to the others.

When it was over I spoke with Pete for a little bit before heading home. One thing I don’t like about it is when people talk about physical reactions, such as feeling ill, not eating, not sleeping, nightmares, etc, I don’t have those things. But I don’t want to say “it has not affected me at all. In fact, as soon as the call was over, I was done with it.” That just seems cold. I asked him about it. He said something that is important for us as a Coroner is to be able to compartmentalize our calls so we do not get eaten alive by them. People who cannot do that do not last long in this line of work.

When I got home it was late I has some cereal and watched some TV, but I was pretty tired and I got to bed around one in the morning.

Cutting it Close with Poker

My poker game started at one in the afternoon. I was scrambling to get players. I was nearly ready to cancel when I found I was going to have a fifth player. So I kept it on.

We started to play at one. I was doing alright for myself. I was holding my own not having to rebuy. A couple others had rebought before the final rebuy round. A few people also did add-ons at that point. I went from the chip leader, to someone in the middle of the pack. I did not do a rebuy nor an add-on.

As the day went on we were getting closer and closer to softball time. I gave Ryan some money to go get some pizza because we wanted to eat before the game. He had been busted out by this time and was bored watching golf on TV anyway.

He went off and was gone for a while, I was starting to wonder where he went. Then he came back with some pizza from Pizza Pipeline. At it turned out Little Caesars was closed today. So he had to order and wait for the pizza from Pipeline.

I was eating and trying to play cards at the same time. It was working out okay. But the others started to bleed me a little bit. I wasn’t getting anything to work with and soon my stack started to go fast. The clock was getting close to time to go to softball. As it turned out Dave, Ty, and I were the only ones left. But we all had to be at the field by six for the softball games. Ty played for a different team but he also had the same game times as Dave and I. I started to push on some bad hands because I still needed to get my uniform on.

I finally got busted out. Dave and Ty decided to split the pot between them with some extra going to the person in the chip lead.

We actually got to play two softball games today. Normally we only get one at the most. The first game we kept up with the other team just fine and started to get a lead on them. They would have some innings where they would score some runs, but they were not a great team. We went into the final inning. I got a clutch basehit and I was standing on first. Nick came to the plate and hit a walk-off three-run homerun for the win.

The second game was against a team that had a very bad pitcher. But the guys would not be patient and allow for some walks. No one was getting any hits. In fact when the game was done, as a team, we had four hits. There is no way to win a softball game on four hits. I was pretty mad about the whole thing. Some of the guys were saying softball is a hitters game.

I don’t disagree, you have to be liberal with what you choose to swing at, but when guys are swinging at pitches over their head and popping up all the time, we have to do something. We lost that game because really no one cared to win it.

When that game was done I was heading home so I could get my uniform off and head to the station for rig checks. As I was coming down Terre View from the fields I could see people were leaving the station. I figured that rig checks were done. I called Bien and talked to him. He told me what had transpired on the telephone with Jacob so I could get the full story.

Because rig checks were done I went into the house and got my uniform off. I was sitting at my computer when I head Pullman and D-Twelve get dispatched for a car accident. It went out as Bravo-Injury. But I listened in and I could tell it was worse as time went on. There was one person trapped and barely breathing. As I listened in more, Tyson and Reed were both on IM chatting with me. I heard a call for two more ambulances.

It was fourteen minutes into everything when I got a call from Pete. I knew then what was going on. I was given the message to call Whitcom. I then went in service and went to the scene. As it turned out an elderly lady had been involved and killed by the car accident. When I got on scene I also found out the people in the accident were related to some firefighters. That caused many people at the scene to be more stressed than normal.

I got on scene before the first person was even transported to the hospital. I started to look at the scene and make my impressions of what happened. I photographed the scene and then spoke with Vinny about removal. I was given the greenlight by him. He needed to do his investigation and I did not want to mess up anything he was doing.

I got Kimballs to come out and got the removal done. I spoke with IC and a few of the cops there. Pete had also called me a couple times while I was out there wanting to know what was going on. He decided to come out. He met me at the funeral home. After I had a chance to make my determination of the cause of death, Pete went over it on his own and did the same thing. When it was done he concurred with what I had found and what I said was the cause of death.

By the time that scene was done and the funeral home part was done it was pretty late. I still had to get back and write my report about the rest of the incident and what I had found.

No sleep for the tired

This evening I went to My Office to start the night off. It was to get people signed up for the softball team. I was there to help Dave find Brian when he got there. Then I had to head to Colfax for our Coroners meeting. We had been trying to schedule one for several weeks and finally got this one going. We talked about my case earlier last month. We also got the on-call schedule set for the next two months.

After the meeting I got back to Pullman to be on call for the fire department. It was one of those nights where we ran calls most of the night getting very little sleep. I have the recruit class in the morning so I had to make sure I was up in time for that and I knew I would be dragging due to my lack of sleep.

Just Some Drive Time

I got a phone call from Pete to start my day. Instead of going to back to sleep I got up and went to the training tower. No one was there. So I went to the fire station and talked to Chapman. He was doing a rig check on the ambulance. I got some drive time set up with my guys.

I got some lunch and then went back to the station. I helped finish the rig check while waiting for Morgan and Jake to get there. I got a phone call from the family of the deceased I worked with yesterday. I told him what we were doing and what the latest information that I had.

We went out for a couple hours. Morgan is new at driving and he is still getting use to driving. Jake did really well. He doesn’t really know the city very well so he needs to learn the city. But he drove the rig well.

When we were done I went to the store to get some shopping done. I have been needing to do it for a few days. While shopping Volk called and told me the ambulance was dirty and I should have washed it. I told him I could wash it if he would like. He said he would. I was sort of pissed because they have left our rigs dirty.

When I got home I made some dinner and watched TV for a couple hours. I made my way to the station around eleven at night. I washed the ambulance. Just as I was finishing up the tones went off. But only the PL had to go. I don’t know if the ambulance had to go out on a call or not.

Incredibly Busy Day

Today started out with a Delta and Echo response at the same time. I went down and I went on Rescue. It was about seven-thirty in the morning. We were going to go to the Echo, but we were told to go to the Delta. The Echo was cleared quickly, so I knew what that meant.

After the Delta we got an Alpha. We were first on scene and it really was just a public assist. When I was leaving I had a call from Pete about the death in Pullman. He was going to take it, but I told him I was the one on call. So I went home and got into my coroners uniform and went to the scene. I was on scene for a couple hours getting information and then I went to the funeral home and got more information. Due to the information I got from the family it was not clear whether it was an accidental or a natural event. I spent some time talking to Pete. We were going to meet up later on and go over everything.

I got back to my place and worked on the paperwork. It took some time to write the stuff up, count the meds, and contact the doctors. I got done with that and went back to the funeral home to meet Pete. We went over my findings and talked about what I found. He said that he agreed an autopsy was going to be needed. He scheduled that.

I had just enough time to get home, change, and get to the fire station. Erik called and said we needed to take Rescue to work the WSU Baseball game. It was against the Huskies. There were more than three-thousand people. It was one of the ten biggest crowds ever. We were there working that for a couple hours when we got a call for a power line down. Tyson and I went on that leaving Brian at the game, in the tenth inning. It turned out the Cougs lost in the eleventh.

On the power line down call I took command. I cleared the other units. We stood by incase a fire broke out because the live wire. A couple WSU cops were there and we spent the next couple hours talking and making jokes. We were on scene for four hours waiting for Avista and to be cleared. I got my report written.

I got my report done. I got home and made a sandwich. Then we got a call. The next couple hours we got a couple more calls. It was so tiring. I finally got to go to bed about four in the morning. It was nearly a twenty hour day on the clock. I was so tired by the end of the day.

Softball Signups!

Getting up this early, I had to get to the rec center to sign up for the softball team. I was the first one in the Men’s Comp on Sunday nights. It is not like it use to be when there was a line down the hall of the CUB with people waiting to get a team. Now you can show up hours after the sign ups start and still get your team.

My schedule showed a Coroner’s meeting as well as a meeting to get signed up for teaching recruit classes. That meeting started at one o’clock pm. I got to the station just in time for the meeting to start. It lasted about an hour talking about the schedule of the academy as well as getting people signed up for it.

I was at home working on some stuff there before heading to Colfax for the Coroner’s training. I stopped by the fire department in Colfax to let them know I would not be there for training because I was going to the coroners meeting. I also had Ken’s pocket knife and returned it to him. He gave me a lot of crap, in jest, but it was fun.

I went to the coroners meeting and no one show up. After a while I called Pete and there was no meeting tonight. So I went to the Colfax Fire training. I was a little late but I was able to be there for most of the training. We were doing stuff with setting up Command.

Poker at Zeppoz

I went to Staples to get the stuff the was missing from when I was there yesterday. I got home and worked on cutting those items from the foam board. I also got the photos glued to the foam board.

I decided to go to Zeppoz for a while. That was a mistake however. I could not find a hand to win. I got a couple, but even on hands that I had that were good people were sucking out on me. It is hard to chase someone away when you can only bet a certain limit. I was there for several hours, but I ended up losing pretty bad. Finally I gave up. I still had some money, but I was not about to drop any more money at the table.

Coroner’s Supplies

I made my way to Moscow to look at cameras. I was seeing the prices they had on them over there. I found WalMart and Office Depot were the same price. I also stopped by Staples. I ended up buying several things that I have wanted to get including a papercutter, an exacto knife, a scale ruler, as well as supplies to start working on the foam board for my project.

I got home and realized that some of the items were left at Staples and they were closed. So I spent the time making measurements and getting everything ready to start making the cuts. It took a couple hours to get things measured and the lines drawn. I am excited about how this project will turn out.

Got My Letter Finally

I got the letter that shows my OC training was completed. I am going to send that off to Mercer Island so I don’t have to get sprayed with OC again.

I delivered the laptop computer to Poffenroth today as well. At Colfax Fire we had our Board and Business training.

I did some more research on the camera for the coroners office. I am hoping that we can get them. It is a Kodak camera with a twelve-x zoom.

Cooling Off

I woke up early in hopes of getting my meeting with Heston. It turned out he said today was no good. I was stewing on everything and it made it hard to concentrate at times. I really wanted to talk to Michael about who told him what in relation to me being “mad” at him. I finally got a hold of Michael on my way to Colfax for the coroners meeting. We talked for about thirty minutes. I got a chance to better understand the issue with Heston as Michael.

It seems that people who were subbing on his shift recently were saying things that lead him to believe I was mad about things. That, of course, is not true. I also found out it was not a situation where a reserve said something around a group of full-timers who talked to Heston. It was more of a situation where different people were getting certain perceptions of me.

I also had realized my demeanor has been pretty poor lately. Around the guys and on calls it has been good, but there have been times were I was less that happy about stuff happening. I think I need to reevaluate what I have given up to be here and why I chose to do so. The overall picture is that I want to be here. I desire to be here. I would hate to not be on the department. But up some of the day to day politics are very troubling. I wish I could distance myself from the politics and just enjoy responding on calls and being part of the team.

When we were off the phone I felt better. I went into the SO to get my letter that said I have been through OC training, but it was not there. Darn it!

I went to the Coroner’s office. Patti forgot about the meeting and did not show up. So it was just Pete and I. We went over some of the stuff he did at the conference in general, but we did not spend much time on it. We spent most of the time BSing.

Following the meeting I got home and started to work on one of my bugs. When I got stuck and when Russell called I went to his house. We played Apples to Apples. I hung out there for a couple hours and had a great time. By the time I had left I had forgotten about the stuff going on at the fire department. I was finally feeling relaxed. I love having friends.

Monthly Coroners Meeting

When I got to Colfax I wanted to get a couple things taken care of, so I started at the SO and I talked to Jodie about my OC spray training records. I also saw Tom. I was debating about asking him how he knew about me, but I opted not to.

I went to Colfax fire and hung out there for quite a while. I looked at Tim’s CAD drawings of the well incident. They are doing a critique on it today. But because of the Coroners meeting I couldn’t stick around.

I went back to the SO and down to the coroners meeting. It was pretty much same ol’ stuff. We got our schedule done for next month, followed by covering some of the cases we had over the last six weeks or so. We have not been too busy on the weekends lately.

Incredibly Tired

After getting to bed and sleeping for about four hours I was up again. I was very tired and I got the last few things done with the HazMat CD’s. Shortly thereafter I had to get to the radio show. I went to the studio and I forgot my cell phone at home.

I was dragging as I started the show and I did not have my “A” game going. So I was just being loopy but I got through the show. I did not think it was all that good. I had a little bit of time at home before I had to get to the fire station to work on the Rescue and where to put the new tools. When I got home there was a message from Pete about a suicide down at the river. He ended up going on it.

I met up with Erik at the fire station and we put the new tools and Rescue and rearranged the tools that existed on it. It is cool that we are running the new tools now. With OTEP training coming up at seven o’clock I just decided to hang out at the station.

Pete called me and told me that if I had some time to go to the funeral home and investigate the wounds to get an idea of what happened on this case. It was interesting because now I have seen shotgun, handgun, and rifle damage to the human head. There is a lot of differences between each one.

The OTEP training was pretty short over all. We covered burns. Once we were done with the training I went to Mike’s house for poker. I was there until midnight. I ended up walking away with an extra thirty-one bucks.

When I got home I wrote back and forth with Matt and Monte about the call from yesterday. I told Matt that I was not offended and that he could not offend me. I asked both to keep the information secret. I also asked Monte how Tom knew about it. It was Tom who told Monte. Monte said he heard about it several years about and it was a non-issue to him. I was surprised to hear that Tom has known about it for three or four years. Monte said “remember it is a small world”. I wonder if the Evergreen article is how Tom found out.