Firemen Should Be Seen, But Not Herd

The Captain and A-Shift crew of L.A. County’s Fire Station 51 had no sooner sat down for a late lunch, when the claxons sounded.

The six munching firemen immediately abandoned their meals and began heading for the garage, and their respective rescue trucks.

Their ‘late lunch’ was looking more and more like it was gonna end up being an ‘early supper’.

“Station 51…” the dispatcher’s voice blurted from a wall-mounted speaker, “single vehicle accident…in the East-bound lanes of the Pamona Freeway…near an overpass…between the four and five mile markers…East-bound lanes of the Pamona Freeway…near an overpass…between the four and five mile markers…Ambulance is responding…Time Out…13:20”

“Station 51. KMG-365,” Captain Hank Stanley calmly acknowledged. He replaced the call desk’s radio mic’ and passed a copy of the address on to his paramedic team.

John Gage glanced up from an open map in his lap. “Cap, there’s a whole lot a’ construction on La Brea. If we take 28 and use the Palo Verde on ramp, we might be able to save a few minutes…"

The Captain flashed Squad 51’s navigator a smile of approval. “Sounds like a plan,” he determined. “I’ll run it past Mike.”

Hank trotted across the garage and climbed up into Engine 51’s cab. “If we take 28 and use the Palo Verde on ramp, John seems to think we’ll save a little time.” The fire officer finished shrugging his coat on and donning his helmet. “What d’yah think?” he asked, as he collapsed into the leather-covered seat, beside his engineer.

“I think we’ll save more than a little time,” Mike Stoker immediately came back. The engineer stuck his left arm out his open window and gave Gage a ‘thumbs up’ sign.

“Okay,” the paramedic informed his partner, as they began pulling out of the parking bay. “Hang a right.”

Engine 51 followed them from the garage and both rescue vehicles went racing off down the broad, busy street in front of the Fire Station, with their overhead lights flashing and their warning sirens wailing.

In a little less than ten minutes, the rescuers had reached—and been waved through—a police roadblock. But, not before being advised to proceed non Code R.

Sixty seconds later, the trucks pulled up to the accident scene and their occupants spilled out onto the pavement.

The racing firetrucks had made excellent time, indeed! Apparently, they had even managed to beat the Sheriff’s Department and Highway Patrol to the scene, because there was only one other vehicle visible.

It’s a good thing the cops had traffic stopped, because the big rig was currently blocking four of the Pamona Freeway’s five East-bound lanes.

Judging by the ventilation slats in the overturned trailer’s side walls, the truck had been transporting livestock. ‘Had’ being the operative word. The trailer’s roof had become partially detached during the crash, allowing its live cargo to escape.

Captain Stanley pulled a hand-held radio from a clip on his belt and thumbed its send button. “L.A., 51 is on scene. We have an overturned semi. Looks like a livestock hauler has lost his load. Traffic is under control here. Notify the proper authorities and have them stop traffic in the West-bound lanes, as well. We will require a back-up rig, to transport the cattle. Also, request additional manpower be sent to this location…”

The Captain turned and ordered his crew to grab some reel lines and start checking for signs of fire or fuel spills.

The semi’s driver couldn’t have been too badly injured in the crash, for he had crawled out his window and was standing on the side of the cab, staring dazedly off into the distance.

51’s paramedics pulled some equipment from the side compartments of their rescue squad and went trotting up to the front of the truck.

“Yeah,” the young man replied. “I was buckled in.” The guy glanced glumly down at the carnage beneath his booted feet. “But my rig’s sure seen better days.”

Before the driver could even complete his gloomy comment, John Gage had managed to join him topside—er, side-side. “Here. Why don’t you just sit down, and let us check you ou—”

The driver jerked his elbow free of the fireman’s steadying grasp. “I don’t wanna sit down! And I don’t wanna be checked out! I told you, I’m perfectly okay! If you guys are looking for something to do, why don’t you go start rounding up those cows down there?”

The paramedic’s helmeted head swung in the direction of the driver’s pointing finger and his bottom jaw fell open.

The landscape was dotted with cattle. The crazed critters were running up and down all five lanes—and both steeply sloped sides—of the California freeway!

John pulled a green pen from his front pocket and had their victim sign a release form.

The young man’s focus shifted, from the dotted line, to the fire officer. “I was just drivin’ along…mindin’ my own business—when this little blue Bug suddenly cuts me off! I’m tryin’ my damnedest to keep from jack-knifing, and this other idiot, in a Peterbuilt, haulin’ a tanker full a’ gasoline, decides to pass me! The #%!@&! blasted his air-horn as he went by! Scared the livin’ crap outta the cattle, and they all lunged to the other side of the trailer! Rapid lane change, coupled with a twenty-five ton load shift…” The driver’s words trailed off and his attention returned to his wrecked rig.

Gage took back his pen and tossed the clipboard down to his buddy. “You kin cancel the ambulance, Cap. Our victim just refused treatment.”

“I think we’ll hold off on that, until we get these cattle rounded up. If any of them make it up over that slope,” the Captain nodded his helmeted head in the direction of the freeway’s still-busy West-bound lanes, “somebody could be seriously injured—or killed.”

Six or seven of the trailer’s former occupants were returning to the accident scene—at a rather high rate of speed!

Marco Lopez heard a commotion and turned his head to investigate its source. “Cows,” he calmly observed. “Cows!” he nervously repeated, as the critters continued their rapid approach. “CO-OWS!” the firefighter rather alarmedly shrieked, and immediately began to seek cover.

Stoker and Lopez had been washing down a diesel fuel leak. They flung their hoses and started racing toward the safety of their firetruck.

Kelly followed blindly along. The fireman was keeping both eyes peeled on the stampeding animals—in case they should suddenly decide to change course. “Ah, shi—eesh!” he declared, upon dashing through an unseen pile of fresh cow…manure. “That is soooo disgusting!”

“Don’t let them get past you!” their Captain commanded, as he came running around the back of the semi.

The firemen abandoned their fright flight and bravely began hooting and hollering and wildly flailing their arms.

One cow kept coming and Kelly had to ‘bonk’ it on the nose, to avoid being trampled.

“Punchin’ cattle is just a quaint cowboy expression, Chet,” Mike bemusedly remarked. “You’re not supposed to literally ‘slug’ them.”

“Yeah,” Marco joined in. “The poor things already took a beating, when that trailer tumbled over.”

“Hey, that thousand pound monstrosity was about to flatten me like a pancake,” Kelly promptly pointed out, in defense of his actions. “I wasn’t goin’ down without a fight.”

John Gage had rounded the back of the overturned truck just in time to watch ‘events’ unfold. The former ranch hand found his crewmates’ attempts to stop the stampeding cattle most amusing.

The scared critters simply disbanded and then went bolting off—in seven different directions.

“C’mon!” the Captain urged his crew. “Another cattle truck is coming. Let’s start gathering them up.”

Hank halted and turned back in the dark-haired paramedic’s direction. “Is there a problem, John?”

Chet Kelly rolled his eyes. “Relax, Gage. We’re not gonna rustle ‘em. We’re just gonna round ‘em up.”

“So, they’ve had very little contact with humans. They’re not used to people on foot. It’s a safe bet that they’ve never seen ‘firemen’ before.”

Seeing that their Captain still looked somewhat at a loss, Mike Stoker decided to speak up. “I think what he’s tryin’ to say is, that firemen should be seen…but not ‘herd’.”

“Well,” Hank continued, once the groans and snickers had subsided, “we can’t just allow them to run loose. If any of them make it up over that ridge, before the CHP can get traffic in the West-bound lanes stopped, somebody could get killed, or be seriously injured.”

John crossed over to their rescue squad and then stood there, drumming his fingers on its hood. “A one-ton truck doesn’t maneuver quite as quickly as a cutting horse. But I’d sure like to give it a try, Cap…”

“Go ahead,” Hank declared, with a broad grin and a wave of his arm. “Show us what yah got.”

Gage returned his Captain’s grin—with interest, and quickly climbed up into the truck’s cab. “Cap?” he called out the Squad’s open window. “Yah think we could use some ladder sections to create a loading chute, and maybe string some rope out, to form a kind a’ human corral?”

This time, the Captain nodded his approval of the paramedic’s proposals. “Consider it done!”

The former cowboy—turned fireman—revved his truck’s engine to life, and then headed off, to begin his ‘cattle drive’.

In the course of his sixteen years with the Fire Service, Hank Stanley had been forced to call upon his ‘field engineering’ skills on numerous occasions. Why, compared to the difficulties some of his past ‘impromptu’ projects had presented, the fire officer figured ‘assembling a makeshift cattle corral’ would be mere child’s play.

The Captain had his crew remove two twenty-foot wooden ladder sections, and four fifty-foot coils of rope from their truck. Then he took two hundred-foot sections of rope from one of Big Red’s side compartments and turned to go. “Follow me!” he ordered.

All five firemen began heading off down the freeway—in the direction of the roundup.

“Try ta keep up, will yah?” Chet whined, to the person tugging on the tail-end of the heavy ladder section he was toting.

“Why don’t you try walking in a straight line—for a change?” Marco complained and gave his grumpy, zigzagging buddy’s back an annoyed glare.

‘Literally,’ the Captain mused, suppressing a smile all the while. “All right. This looks good. Place your ladder sections down right here, perpendicular to the center lane, and about five-feet apart.”

“Fine. Now, I want you to secure the ends of those four ropes to the four sides of these ladders—right at around the last rungs. That’s it,” the Captain commended his men, as they again did as directed. “Okay. Mike, Roy, start stringing your ropes out. Don’t stop til you’ve reached the shoulder of the road. Chet, Marco, you guys do the same, only, in the opposite direction. The idea is, to use the four ropes to form a giant ‘V’.”

“For victory. Right, Cap?” Marco Lopez lightly commented, as he obligingly began to uncoil his rope.

Hank set his heavy coils of rope down and then backtracked over to where their firetruck was parked.

Hank quickly counted out and removed six Snickers bars from his ‘stash’ of emergency snacks. He dropped the candy into his coat pockets, and then himself down onto the pavement.

Before heading back over to their ‘cattle-pen-in-progress’, the fire officer stopped to pull five, broad, leather life-belts from one of the truck’s open equipment compartments.

The Captain returned and began dispensing the items he was carrying to his crew.

Chet gazed gleefully down at the snack in his right hand. “All right! Thanks, Cap!” The famished fireman then turned his attention to the object that had been deposited in his left. “What’s with the belts?”

“Our corral is going to have two rails,” his Captain promptly replied. “Clip the bottom rope to your belt. And, for Pete’s sake, DON’T take a wrap with the rope! I want everybody to be able to unclip—in a hurry—if we have to.”

The five firemen stood there, in V-formation, on the freeway, manning their ropes and contentedly munching away on their Snickers bars.

Three miles further down the freeway, the sixth member of Station 51’s crew finally came upon—what he hoped—was the last of the spooked—and still stampeding—steers.

A few of the critters he’d come across were limping a little and missing some hair—here and there. But, thanks to their tough cowhides, there were no cuts visible.

He snatched up his truck’s dash-mounted radio’s mic’ and thumbed its ‘send’ button. “Squad 51 to HT 51…Switching to Channel 3,” he advised, and turned his tuner’s knob until it matched the announced number.

“HT 51,” his Captain quickly came back. “Roger that, Squad 51…Switching to Channel 3.”

The paramedic pressed his mic’ button again. “Cap? This is John. How do you read?”

“Okay, Cap, I’ve come across thirty-eight animals, so far. Could you ask the trucker how many head he was haulin’?”

“Thirty-eight head,” his Captain replied, following a few moments of dead air space.

“Great! That means the cattle are all present and accounted for. I’m gonna start headin’ ‘em back your way. How’s the corral comin’?”

“I sure hope so,” the paramedic mumbled to himself, just prior to thumbing the mic’ button. “All right, Cap. John out.” The vaquero got his vehicle turned around and started driving the steers back down the freeway, toward the scene of the accident.

John cursed, as one of the belligerent beasts he was dogging kept doubling back. The fireman’s arms and elbows flailed wildly, as he whipped the wheel—first in one direction, and then the next!

It was inevitable. Every group—be it composed of animals or humans—always seemed to contain one ‘bunch quitter’.

The firemen watched the rapidly moving rescue truck’s front tires disappear into one of them. A second later, the Squad bounced up out of the ditch.

Hank winced, as the truck’s occupant suddenly wrenched its steering wheel ridiculously hard—to the right, no, left—no, right. “If Charlie wants to know why the Squad suddenly needs a new front-end alignment…we didn’t see a thing. Got it?…Got it?” the Captain menacingly repeated, his narrowed eyes making direct contact with Kelly’s.

“I see noth-thing. I see noth-thing,” Chet unenthusiastically responded, doing a stellar impersonation of ‘Stalag 13’s ‘Sergeant Schultz’.

“Cap?” Kelly continued, his glum gaze reluctantly returning to the roundup. “How come we have to stand around, holding this stupid rope, while Gage gets to wreck the Squad?”

“You operate the heavy equipment. Gage rounds up the cattle,” his Captain calmly replied. “It’s the way of the world.”

“Yeah. But operating heavy equipment requires skill. Anybody can drive around in circles.”

“Oh? Really?” Hank’s helmeted head slowly swung back in the complainer’s direction. “How many ‘Cutting and Roping’ trophies do you have settin’ on the top of your bookcase, Kelly?”

“Chet doesn’t even have a bookcase,” Mike Stoker teased, when Kelly failed to reply.

Chet gave each of his chuckling chums an annoyed glare. “I do so got a bookcase—and there’s a trophy settin’ on it, too.”

“Yeah,” Marco bemusedly concurred. “For winning a Demolition Derby—back when you were a senior in high school.”

Their Captain’s eyebrows arched and his pursed lips parted. “I rest my…‘case’.”

“Technically speaking, what you have is a barbed wire case,” Mike continued to tease.

“Golly be’ll, Mikey,” Kelly drawled back. “You ornery old scudder, you. Why, you’re antsier than a gal with a big ole bee in her bonnet.”

“Who’s that supposed to be?” Mikey wondered, struggling desperately to keep a straight face. “Gomer Pyle?”

“Figures,” Stoker stated, sounding even smugger. “The onliest thing Kelly knows about herding cattle comes from what he’s seen on ‘Gunsmoke’.”

“Not just ‘Gunsmoke’,” Kelly corrected. “I watched ‘Rawhide’, ‘Bonanza’, ‘Lancer’, ‘Cimarron Strip’ and ‘The High Chaparral’, too, yah know!”

“Would yah look at him go!” Lopez exclaimed, as Gage shot across the freeway, through another drainage ditch and then drove slantingly down one of the steep grassy slopes, to head an escaping steer off at the pass—er, the overpass. “Did you see that? It’s almost like he knew what that cow was thinking!”

“Big deal,” Chet said, sounding every bit as bored as he looked. “Gage has got ‘bovine brains’. So? What else is new?”

Gage got the cattle all gathered, right in the middle of the freeway, and then drove over to where his Captain was standing. "That’s a top-notch corral you got there, Cap!"

"Thanks. It has two rails," the Captain proudly pointed out, and passed the paramedic his Snickers bar.

The cattle were all rounded up and the corral was ready. But there was still no ‘upright’ semi in sight.

Stanley studied the milling, mooing critters for a few moments. "Shouldn’t we put them in the corral, before something scatters them—again?"

Gage’s gaze shifted, from the still half-crazed with fear steers, to the makeshift cattle pen.

The corral may have been ready for the cattle, but the cattle weren’t quite ready to be corralled.

"Trust me, Cap. They’ll be a lot easier to work with, if we let ‘em calm down a little, first. We try to rush them—before they’re ready—and somebody’s gonna get stomped on."

The drover—er, driver sat there, with his rescue truck’s engine running, snacking on his candy bar. "Cattle are herd animals, Cap. They sort a’ got this ‘safety in numbers’ mentality. They feel much safer in a group. Now that we got ‘em bunched up, they’ll settle right down. You’ll see," the ex-cowboy confidently predicted.

Settle the cattle did. Why, after just a few minutes of huddling together, one of the critters was even feeling comfortable enough to lie down.

The rest of the rounded up steers just continued to stand there, calmly and contentedly chewing their cud.

One of the funny looking fenceposts suddenly shifted his weight, causing several of the animals to perk up and nervously flick their ears in its direction.

"Please, don’t anybody move!" Gage—who had gone back to circling the herd—pleaded, over his rescue truck’s radio.

Kelly groaned, inwardly. He’d never had to stand so still, for soooooo long, before, in his entire life—not even when he was in the service! "Hey, Cap?" he quietly called out. "Can we, at least, talk?"

Hank, who was keeping his back to the herd, thumbed his HT’s call button. "Kelly wants to know if it’s okay to talk…"

"Sure, as long as he does it quietly. But, if anybody moves anything other than their mouth, these animals are all gonna go flyin’ off down the freeway, again."

"Understood," the Captain spoke into his HT. His head slowly swung in the dope-on-a-rope’s direction. "Understood?"

"Hey, Cap?" Chet whined, less than five motionless minutes later. "My right ear is itchy…"

Kelly sucked it up. But he was bored out of his gourd and sick to death of just standing there. "Damn it, Jim!" he suddenly proclaimed, slipping into his ‘Doctor McCoy’ persona. "I’m a fireman, not a fencepost!"

Their Captain’s right eyebrow instantly arched and, when he spoke, he sounded very ‘Spock’ like. "There are times when I feel as though I am talking to a fencepost."

"Great!" Chet grumbled, just beneath his breath. "Now, I’m a singing fencepost."

"Home, home on the range," Marco obligingly began to croon. "Where the deer and the antelope play…"

Right about then, Chet’s stomach chose to growl—and not quietly, either. One Snickers bar had not even come close to filling it. "I’d like to get one of those little dogies home on my range. Or, better yet, my barbecue grill."

The fireman’s buddies grinned and exchanged knowing glances. They were all wise to the Irishman’s ways. They knew that—for all his bluster—Chet was too tender-hearted to even trap a mouse—let alone slaughter a steer!

"Where seldom is heard, a discouraging word," Captain Stanley continued, his stern gaze fixed upon the complainer, and his melodious words filled with double-meaning.

Kelly begrudgingly broke into song, himself. "And the skies are not cloudy all day."

"Oh, give me a home, where the buffalo roam," DeSoto and Stoker began again, performing a duet.

They’d just finished their fourth chorus of ‘Home On The Range’ and Kelly had just begun to ramble—on and on—about the virtues of various types of barbed wire, when reinforcements arrived…non-Code R, of course.

Hank flicked channels and then raised his hand-held radio to his lips. "Engine 36, Engine 51…I need you and your crew to don some life-belts and then calmly and quietly man the rope lines…"

"Engine 36. 10-4, 51," Station 36’s Captain unquestioningly came back, and—just like that—the rope rails of their corral were reinforced with six more fenceposts—er, firemen.

The trailer’s slatted back doors were swung out to the sides and their cattle shute—er, wooden ladders were secured to them. An inner door was then lowered, forming a loading ramp.

"Ready, or not," Gage announced, over his rescue truck’s radio. "Here they come."

The cattle were quickly moved, from the middle of the freeway...into the rope corral with all the funny looking fenceposts.

"Okay, Cap, you can start closing the ‘gate’…"

The Captain had tied the free ends of his coils of rope to the two ropes Lopez was holding. He started heading over to where DeSoto stood, playing his ropes out along the way.

As the two ‘end posts’ slowly converged, the Captain carefully took up the slack in their ‘gate’.

The paramedic parked his truck and carefully climbed out, being careful not to slam its door.

"Okay. Now, how do we get them in the truck?" Stanley wondered, as his cattle expert came stepping up.

"We just need one or two to go in. The rest should follow. The problem is, none of ‘em are gonna wanna go in. The last time they stepped into a dark, spooky cattle trailer, they got hurt and tossed around. It must a’ been like being in a giant rock tumbler, to them."

"We take our time and keep closing the corral in on them—inch by inch—until there’s no place left to go but up that ramp."

The three truck drivers watched—wordlessly—as the ex-cowboy carefully orchestrated the crowding of the cattle.

John’s movements were smooth and deliberate, as he continued to close the rope corral in on the enormous—and increasingly nervous—animals. While he worked, the paramedic kept making this ‘ch-ch ch-ch ch-ch ch-ch’ sound. Which seemed to soothe the cattle—considerably.

Before they knew it, the last steer had high-tailed it up the ramp and disappeared into the now crowded cattle trailer.

The loading ramp was immediately lifted and the stock trailer’s slatted gates were quickly closed and clamped.

Marco continued to just stand there, basking in the glow of victory. "That sure worked slick! Huh, Cap."

Stoker charged his engine’s pump back up and the firemen took turns using the reel lines to rinse all traces of the guey cow huey from the soles of their boots.

Nobody was allowed to step foot on Big Red, until they had passed the engineer’s inspection—not even the Captain!

"My head's fine," Gage assured him. "But I ain't so sure about my shoulders," he continued, with a grimace and a groan. "Man, I bet they're gonna be sore for a week. I’m used to the ‘horse’ doin’ all the work," he went on to explain, upon catching his partner's questioning look.

Roy flashed his friend a sympathetic smile. "I trust they're not too sore for you to grab onto to other end of this ladder..." he hinted.

"C’mon, Boys!" Hank urged, speaking with just the hint of a ‘draw-awl’. "We’re burnin’ daylight, here. Let’s head on back to the barn, and rustle ourselves up some grub. "

The ‘Boys’ obligingly headed their rescue rigs on up…and moved ‘em on out.

"Okay, Cap, you can start closing the ‘gate’…"

Happy trails to you