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Thirty seconds later, I’m back in the rig with my crew headed to Sloan Street. My conversation with Ace reinforces my decision that Vanessa must move back to the cottage. That distance will help me stay away from her. That decision made, I remove Vanessa from my thoughts and concentrate on the job ahead. Adrenaline surges through me as the engine tears through the roads. This is my favorite part of the job. The reason all of us became firefighters. To help people and keep our fellow citizens safe. We take a left into a residential street. The house is in a cul-de-sac. As we approach, we see the owner standing outside the house waving at the engine.
“I smell smoke,” she says when we jump out of the rig.
“Where’s the smoke coming from?” I ask her even though I know the answer to that question.
“That’s the damnest thing!” she says. “I can’t tell where it’s coming from.” She’s a woman in her late fifties to early sixties and she seems to be of sound mind and health.
I shoot questions at her as we approach the house. Has she used any equipment lately? Does she smoke? She says that she does but always smokes outside. Has there been a power interruption lately? Was she cooking? She answers no to all my questions.
We enter the house and that’s when I smell it. It’s not a strong odor but it’s there and worse, we can’t seem to isolate the room from where it’s coming from. With such cases, we usually start at the most likely source of the smoke. The kitchen, the heating, the ventilation, and the air conditioning.
An hour later, we’re still clueless and growing increasingly frustrated. We’ve never taken so long on a job like this one. Locating the source of smoke is usually a twenty-minute job. We’re sitting out on the porch steps wracking our brains.
It’s Ace who finally gets it. “I think the smell is coming from here.” He points at a potted plant. He picks it up and smells it. “Yep, this is the culprit.” We all take turns to smell it and when it comes to me, I nod. “It’s the one.”
Ace takes the pot outside and pulls the plant from the pot. Along with it tumble forty or so cigarette butts. The woman guilty admits to pushing her finished cigarettes down the pot where she thinks it’s safe to put them out. It seems that one wasn’t quite out and they began to smolder.
After a stern lecture regarding a proper place to put cigarette butts, we return to the station. Our shift is over and as I’m changing into my street clothes, my phone rings. My heart races when I see Vanessa’s number. This is not her usual time of calling.
I hit answer. “Hello, Valerie.”
“Hey, Logan. It’s Emma. She’s running a fever that won’t come down and we’re taking her to the ER,” she says, her voice tinged with worry.
Panic jabs at my stomach. As a first responder, I know that the worst thing to do in an emergency is to panic. I force it down and concentrate on the steps I need to take. First is information. I have so many questions but there will be time for them later. Right now, what I need to do is to be with my daughter. “I’ll meet you there.” My baby daughter who is so tiny and so helpless. An image of Emma fills my mind and I want to punch out my fear.
“Hey, you okay?”
I hadn’t realized that Ace had come into the locker room. I’m about to tell him that I’m cool when he continues talking.
“Don’t say that you’re okay. I can see you’re not. Are your folks all right?” he says.
Ace knows me well. “It’s not them. It’s my daughter. She’s only a few months old and she’s running a fever. Her grandmother has taken her to hospital. I’m headed there.” I’m already moving to the door.
“I’ll follow you in my truck,” Ace says.
I want to protest but there’s no time to waste arguing and honestly, I don’t mind having a friend with me. On the way to the hospital, I grip the steering wheel tightly and try to drive under the speed limit. I’ve never gotten a speeding ticket and I don’t intend to get one now.
A fever was all the information that Valerie gave me. I’m not a paramedic but I’ve picked up a lot of information over the years from working alongside them. A fever in babies can be caused by a multitude of factors, some of which can be deadly. Most of the time it means that their little bodies are busy fighting off an infection. In rare cases though, a fever can signify a serious infection. I don’t want to go down that road.
