Emergency Vehicle Driving

This weekend is the annual recertification exercise for driving big fire trucks and such. The over the road exercises are fine, as is most of the obstacle course, with the exception of the serpentine event. There you have to weave the vehicle through a series of cones, which is fine; but then you have to back it through the cones in the opposite direction from how you went forward. Everyone eventually passed it, but there were numerous second tries. 

By coincidence the exercise coincided with the 50th birthday of a member. Thus, a surprise party. 


Less happily it also coincided with a benefit barbecue by a neighbor county for a firefighter who was burned in a recent emergency. We sent the birthday boy over to pick up some Boston butts from their benefit, which also gave us time to set up the surprise party. 

There’s a lot of value in these civic organizations. Even apart from the rescue and fire protection, the community is stronger and better because of these common efforts. 
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3 comments:

  1. Texan993:06 PM

    Years ago I had to do that backwards-serpentine test, which nearly kicked my butt. Luckily it wasn't timed, because my approach was an exaggerated S-curve instead of the efficient shallow slalom that was really called for. I had no idea how absurdly far I was going from left to right until I finished and they showed me what my track had been.

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  2. Grim3:58 PM

    Here one of the requirements is that you can’t stop. But I’ve got through it like you, and the instructor said, “Technically you passed, but that was so ugly I want you to do it again.”

    It went better.

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  3. Texan994:32 PM

    I don't think I stopped, but I probably went about 1/2 mph and covered 10x the required distance. Ugly indeed!

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