Thomas got at scene. He saw a girl curled up with a rope not real good clothes on for being in th ewoods. He was concerned about her wellbeing. She was talking about herself in the third person. He called the sheriff then he called me. He called 911 it went to the CHP. He ended up calling me privately. He was just cahtting with her. She had made comments about the rope being to solve some issues.

 He contacted the sheriff again. Gave him a longer ETA Called CHP. We were able to seperate her from the rope. We got her to Miranda so about 2.5 hours from when we intially  Transported by the ambulance.

I was headed into town for grocery shopping I’m home 2 -4 days. I can have back to back calls. Two things happen at the same time. One day recently  fire and a medical aide. Fires and vehicle wrecks will take 4 to 5 hours.  10 to 1 am for a recent vehicle wreck.  

I started in 94 when I was a jr in High School. Twenty hours a week into volenteer stuff. Training calls, meetings and paperwork. Now it is a little bit better. I have good help. 

I just deal with the county and do paperwork  Chief of Salmon Creek Volunteer Fire Dept. Just helping the communty. I feel good about helping the community. It has definitely shaped who I’ve become. The other night when the guy when off the road and we saved his life it counterbalences

It is definitely a high stress job for what they pay you.

Each dept has an ego. Each dept is its own individual agency. Some of The southern Dept. are in their hippie bake sale type.  

We have to perform more than we used to. we used to do just wildland fires then we started to do medical aide and structure fires. Then we’ve got new rules dwe’ve got to abide by and new equipment to learn and it is costing us volunteers. We did a structure fire training. >>>People realized that 

Our frequency of those types of calls  has gone threw the roof

There has been community support. OUr community gets more support than a lot of communities. Our fundraisers can make thousands others only make hundreds. More comjmunities should support their local fire departments. 

We used to have 12 guys in the mid 2000’s now we’ve gone to seven. 
Matt Stark….

————————————————

Thomas Norris

On the way down to Miranda I see a gal sitting in the middle of the road in the middle of a blind turn. I drive pretty slow so it turned out okay. I just pulled over to see if she was all right. She was kind of in an altered state. She had a rope with a lope in it. She started talking in the third person that she was going to fix herself and toher pepole…the way she was acting the way she was talking I was assuming she was a suicidal patient. He tried calling Cal Fire 

3:30 he met with her. She wouldn’t move out of the road. She was kinda uncooperative. I called 911 Dispatch said they would send out a deputy. I got the patient to move to the side.

About an hour into it, I called 911 again. This time all our deputies are busy and CHP is busy Gave me their number. Contacted Matt (Salmon Creek Fire Chief) I was running out of things to talk to her about and I wasn’t going to leave her alone and several attempts of me trying to get rid of the rope were unsuccessful she got really aggravated about that. 

Matt shows up about 5 p.m. and assists me with talking to her. He and I were trying to calm her down about 45 minutes. I finally got where she was comfortable tellmin me that she hadn’t eaten in two days. They told her they would take her to the Avenue. She was fine with that as long as she could take her rope. We updated dispatch. She went with Matt. Thomas followed.

Dispatch was surprised that we were with her so long. Dispatch was really nice really cool about it. Salmon Creek Fire bought her dinner. Miranda fire got paged out when we wanted just the ambulance. Law enforcemnet showed up when she was in ambulance.

When the para medics showed up she was cooperative. She got up. I took the rope and took it outside. They put her on a guerney and took her away. The deputy showed up and thanked us for what we did. 

HE was super nice. There was nothing he could do. 

I have some law enforcement training and some negotiating training but most volunteer fire departments…no, no. (Do you feel prepared to deal with this kind of thing?) I called dispatch and let her know and dispatch was super appreciative. After 7 when put her in ambulance. Shift change at 6 is why we couldn’t get any deputies.