Just home from a long and quite interesting shift, or actually two shifts. I started out on my regular truck in Mineola on Saturday morning. We got our regular truck back from maintenance which was very nice. It has an autoload and is quite nice to drive. While it was at maintenance we had one of the oldest trucks in the system and it is always a lot more work, mostly because of the room in the box. Our newer ambulances are very roomy and you don’t have to walk on top of each other.

One of our first calls was to the trainstation in Mineola. Our patient was coming with the train but it would take approximately 15 minutes before it arrived. Well it was Saturday so the little local farmers market was open.

It was a cute little market but no one had any berries and that’s what I was looking for. I had never been into the station here in Mineola and sadly I didn’t take the time prior the trains arrival because I didn’t know what kind of a museum it was in there. I will have to go back and look at it because it looked like a lot of awesome stuff! That ended up on my to-do list for sure. I have always loved trains and had an antique Merklin railroad when I was a child and I played a lot with it!
Enroute to the hospital with the patient the A/C in the ambulance stopped working. It got a little hot but thankfully we arrived to the hospital before we realized it. The patient thought it was quite warm in there and I agreed but when we came back to the ambulance it was a sauna in there and only hot air blowing out of the vents! It was not even noon so there was no way that we could take any patients in it. Call a mechanic and dispatch and get out of service until another truck could be delivered up to Mineola. We were just so grateful that we didn’t have to go to Tyler and pick it up. And it took about 1.5 hour before it got there so it was a nice break, we had time to do our reports and eat our lunch (for once).
But of course, now we got the absolute oldest truck that we have in the system. During the afternoon we could hear over the radio at least two other trucks going down with A/C problems… it is that time of the year!

During the shift I was advised that there could be an opening on a truck in Athens yesterday. I like working that truck because it is an 11:30-23:30 truck which means that even if we have a late call on my regular truck I will still be able to make it home, get the dogs fed and all that and I can take a shower, change clothes and just get a little break before I head out the door again. The same time if I work it before my regular shift, I have time to go home and recharge a little bit before heading out the door again. The dogs were really happy yesterday to get a 20 minute walk around town, just to do anything, not knowing that I was about to leave them again.

Well the Athens shift was much easier than in Mineola. Well, the Mineola truck is the most busy 24 hour truck we have in the system. We only had 3 calls in all 12 hours but we moved all over the place. Athens, Gun Barrel City, Malakoff, Chandler, Tyler and Hideaway are just some of the towns we stopped in at one point or another, either for post or call. We went to have food at DQ in Gun Barrel City and I saw someone that I felt a very much resemblance to:

There was some other guys in line when I took this picture and they thought I was hilarious. I just thought we had a grumpy contest the glove and I. The glove won!

At least the A/C in the truck in Athens kept it all together the entire shift! I don’t think I would be able to deal with another A/C breakdown again. But, all good!