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Fickle_Monster1393 karma

I'll categorise the scariest calls I've had.

  • Life threatening - a fire erupted in the basement of a house. Crews were sent down to firefight, and I was part of the team sent to the first floor (two floors above the fire) to search and rescue. There were 2 people missing. On my way into the 4th compartment, I really felt the heat. Now, my kit is designed to keep heat out (something up to the temperature of 600degrees Celsius), so if k was feeling it, it was hot. Really hot. I had a really bad feeling about the environment (I obviously couldn't see anything cos of the smoke). I told my team leader that we should get out, citing that I wasn't feeling good (I was fit, but something was just really off). Just as we left the compartment, the ground shook and we heard a huuuge crack.

The fire had eaten through the internals of the walls, up beneath the first floor. The ground shaking and cracking was the fire having eaten through the wooden floor. After the incident was over, I was told that right where we were standing was where the huge hole was.

  • Creepy - Got a call that there was a fire in a graveyard at 2am. We roll up, and search around for 30 minutes in the pitch black (apart from our torches) in the dead of night. Silence had never sounded so loud.

    • Crap my pants - I was searching a house once when a drug fuelled tit jumped out at me from behind a door and tackled me to the ground. What a knob.

Fickle_Monster1271 karma

Aaah. Uni students. You guys addicted to using that powder extinguisher at 1am or what? XD

Brings to mind a story I heard about a crew of firefighters who either got demoted or fired for pulling uni students out of dorms and making them wait outside for an hour, because that was the 6th time they were called there that night.

The most ridiculous was definitely a woman who called in that her house was in fire and that she was in the kitchen. When we get there, house is fine, she is fine, her cat is fine. She was adamant, however, that she could see the future, and her house is about to go on fire, so could we wait for a bit. I think she was lonely...

Oh, but one time, I also had to help carry an obese man on a stretcher for about a mile uphill, because the idiot got drunk and drove his disability scooter and himself down into a river. He was still drunk, and kept trying to push me away from him as I carried his 20 stone ass to the ambulance. That was kind of bullshit.

Ah, another time, there was a fire in a house of a hoarder who liked to horde mirrors - free standing mirrors everywhere with a nice thick layer of smoke. I was so confused. It didn't help that there was another team in the house too, so I often found myself talking to myself in a mirror, thinking it was the other team.

Fickle_Monster1061 karma

Don't trust this guy. You'll get burned.

Fickle_Monster735 karma

Very safe. Just keep note of your seed phrase. That's used to recover your btc if you lose access to your account.

I'd recommend storing it in a fire proof safe.

Fickle_Monster623 karma

They're fine if properly checked and maintained.

The main thing to note with electric blankets is not to leave them on overnight, or for a prolonged period of time. Anything that has a tendency to highly heat up (toasters, vacuums, electric blankets, chargers) have a higher tendency to develop a fault than non-heat up electronics.

Also, bear in mind not to overload your extensions, and get rid of block adapters - the latter are huge hazards for a home.