On April 25, the day of the notorious spring snow storm, the Falcon Fire Protection Districts received 52 calls. Hereís a detailed account of some of those calls.*A 39-week pregnant lady: On our way to help her, the responding vehicle got “high-centered” (stuck) on a 5-foot drift; two firefighters had to get out and walk a few blocks with their medical bags and supplies to help her. She delivered a healthy baby within the next 48 hours.*Two deputies (El Paso County) stuck on Judge Orr Road: The first deputy, in a regular patrol car, got stuck at about 3:30 p.m. that afternoon, so he called his buddy (also a deputy sheriff) to come and pull him out of his Dodge Durango sheriff’s car. But, the Durango got stuck about 300 yards from the original stuck patrol car. The FFPD heard Judge Orr was impassable, so a “grader” came out and we followed it, with a crew of three, and another crew of two ñ two brush trucks. We left the FFPD station about 10:30 pm and followed the grader all the way to Ellicott Highway. We reached Ellicott Highway, our turn-around point, at 5:30 a.m. On our way to the deputies, we stopped and checked 50 or 60 stranded vehicles. Only a few of them had passengers, and we added one passenger at 1 a.m. ñ a female stuck with her Ford Expedition just blocks from her home. Her neighbor was one of the stuck deputies. We gave her water and some granola bars and told her to get comfortable because the grader was moving slowly.Next, we came upon a Chevy heavy duty truck with a male passenger sleeping across the front seats; we woke him up and pulled him out with our winch. We then pulled out a Colorado Springs police officer. We now had a line (of cars and trucks) that included the grader, the graderís partner, who was in a big truck; our two fire trucks;the two trucks we pulled out and about 10 other vehicles ñ all inching along like slippery snails.Finally, at about 3:30 a.m. we came across the first deputy, who jumped in our other fire truck. It was only 300 more yards to the next deputy and that took about one hour. We dug out the Dodge Durango. The deputies and the woman who got stuck went to Falcon and spent the rest of the night at one of the deputiesí homes.Our mission was then to make sure everyone was OK on Judge Orr Road all the way between Highway 24 and Ellicott Highway. We checked 10 to 15 more stranded vehicles for signs of life, but found no one. Another grader met us by digging from Ellicott Highway towards us, and we finally back tracked all the way to Fire Station No. 1, arriving at 6:45 a.m. We briefly told a few stories before we found an unoccupied bed or couch. Our shift was over at 8 a.m., and it was the best one hour of sleep I ever had. The next shift took about 13 calls before noon. There were a total of 65 calls in a 28-hour span.The power outages caused a few problems. People on home oxygen had to act quickly to find power so they could avoid breathing problems.A few people stranded in cars needed medical attention: diabetics needed insulin or sugar, and some people were getting cold sitting in their cars.FFPD had only six people on shift that night, so that crew, “C” shift, would like to thank all of the volunteers who showed up at Station 1 with open arms. We also had a few people from “A” and “B” shift give up their days off to help out. We needed all the man/woman power we could get that night and having a combination (paid and volunteer) department was great. We ended up with at least 15 firefighters out and about in the district and at least two other American Medical Response teams came out to help cover the district. Thanks AMR!One last funny story: One lady saw that one of our fire trucks was stuck, and she came out to take pictures of us trying to dig it out. I asked her what she was up to, and she said, ìIím taking pictures of the stuck fire truck so I can show my boss in the morning; he will kill me if I miss work tomorrow and now I can tell my boss Ö I couldnít get to work, if the fire truck was stuck.î
