A momentous day

My 50th birthday has now been and gone. I feel humbled and honoured by every single post on this thread. Thank you.

 

A pretty quiet day all told finglas. We had a few visitors and family members during the day and then out to dinner this evening with just my wife Kim and two daughters. I've had a couple of beers and a couple of glasses of wine. That's enough for me for now. We have a big night on Saturday when three of my other friends who have birthdays within three days of each other. We do a joint birthday celebration and that will be the night to let go a little.

It'll be a bit strange for me on the night because my friend who is hosting the event is actually 50 on Saturday. It's also his father-in-law's 70th. So I've forfeited my own celebration on this occasion. I'll have my own retirement do to celebrate at a later date. But get this, my friend ( Martin ) who's 50 is married to Jen who's father is 70 on the same day, whom I've known them and their families for about 40 odd years. Jen has a little brother Clifford now aged 40. He was a toddler when I first met him.

One night ten years ago I was on duty. It was a Saturday night in June 2006. It was 2am and I tried to get some rest by laying on my pit. I always struggled to sleep on nights on a small and unpleasant camp bed , and would just drift in and out of consciousness until usually rising at about 7am to do my ablutions. However on this occasion the bells went down at 2:13am. We were called to a fire in a flat, in Victoria Avenue, Surbiton.

I was driving on that night and en-route we were informed by our control that this was a 'persons reported fire' which means that the caller believed that people were inside the incident. The adrenalin kicks-in when you hear that. On arrival at the address four minutes from the time of call we were confronted with a fully developed fire on the first floor. The flames and smoke were punching out of the front windows. We immediately committed a breathing apparatus crew to extinguish the fire and carry out any necessary rescue's. I had to find a hydrant for the water supply and was on the radio calling for back-up as well as trying to manage the BA crew's BA board which logs the rescue crews progress and gives me information as to where they are and what they're doing. With a crew of five it is literally all hands to the pump until the cavalry arrives.

Within a couple of minutes the BA crew emerged from the building with a body. It was a female. They put her on the pavement and went back inside to search for more bodies. I was the only one on the street outside and had to do the casualty handling side of things. I searched for a pulse on her blackened, burnt and smoke covered body and couldn't find one. Thankfully an ambulance came racing down the street and immediately took her off my hands and took her to hospital. Two minutes later, the BA crew emerged at the top of the stairs with another body. This time it was a male. The BA crew were breathing out of their arses due to the arduous working conditions and amount of work in such a short space of time. I ran up the stairs to help bring the body to street level as the BA crew were so knackered they were just dragging him out. His head was banging on the stairs so I helped them by lifting his upper body to make the task easier.

The same situation occurred as previously. The BA crew plonked the body down and went back into the building to continue searching and putting out the fire. Meanwhile it was left to me to carry out resuscitation. I searched for a pulse and found none, he wasn't breathing. I had to get him on his side so that any debris in his lungs would fall to one side and allow me a clear area of lung to work with. I began CPR and did this until another ambulance arrived some 15 minutes later. A combination of chest compressions and oral ventilations to try and sustain life.

Anyway, to cut a long story short. The next evening I received a phone call from my mate Martin.

''Was you at a fire in Victoria Avenue last night?'' He asked.

''Yes mate.'' I replied.

'' It was Cliffy.'' He said.

It was at that point the jigsaw all fell into place. I'm still not sure if it was due to their smoke blackened bodies that I didn't recognise them, or if it was a subconscious section of my brain that wouldn't let me recognise them as there was a primal job to be done and there was no room for emotion. It was Clifford and his fiancee Caroline that we had attempted to save. The whole group of us, Me, my wife, Jen, Martin, Cliff and Caroline and a few others were only out two weeks prior to this event. I didn't even know that they had moved into this flat together.

Unfortunately Caroline never regained consciousness and sadly died the following day. Clifford was in a coma for six weeks but made a full recovery and has now found someone else, is married and has two children. The youngest only born a few weeks ago. I received this text on my birthday yesterday from his sister Jen ...

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I think that pretty much sums it all up for me. I probably have another one hundred or so stories but none will ever get as personal as that one.