You have one message.

There's nothing like checking your voicemail figuring it's going to be a "pick up some milk from the store on your way home" message and hearing a frantic, "I'm assuming you are working, call me back, there was an explosion and four maydays on Donnell Drive!" That's the message I got from Marshall this afternoon. He works day work for neighboring DC Fire Department and received info that in PG County what started off as a gas leak at a shopping center ended up as a building explosions. The maydays? They are put out when a FF is down or missing. Since I got off shift this morning and live in Baltimore I had no knowledge of the explosion. I started making phonecalls and of course they all ended in voicemails. No information. Ugh. Now I know why my mom used to get made when I didn't call if I was going to be late. Immediate thoughts are extremely negative.

As public safety providers we are used to dealing with other peoples emergencies. Honestly, there is usually minimal emotion involved. We do our job and we go home. But hearing that a building exploded and there are 4 FF's hurt or unaccounted for just makes our stomach's drop. No matter how much we may complain about each other the fire department is a family. Finding out a co-worker is hurt is like finding out your mom got hurt. The standing joke of our department (not really funny) is we have a horseshoe stuck up our ass and its got to drop eventually. We have had so many incidents that honestly should have killed or disabled one of us. Knowing that horseshoe is eventually going to drop, everytime we hear of some injury or major incident, we prepare ourselves for that day to be the day our luck ran out.

Eventually, I got a call back from someone with an update. Everyone is okay for the most part. One person has a back injury, three others have 2nd degree burns, and another has a sprained ankle. As far as civilian injuries---I have no idea. The building was evacuated prior to the explosion. We always see pictures of aftermath of disasters and think, "holy crap, I can't even imagine." There is video on WUSA's page that shows the explosion from one of our "drive cams." (Cameras inside FD units and police cars.) To the left you can see one person walking away and one, maybe two FF's walking toward the building. How more people didn't get hurt or killed is nothing short of a miracle.

How do we deal with all of it? Sick humor usually. I heard today is the birthday of one of the girls injured. One of our co-workers went up to her and said, "sorry I missed your birthday party, heard it was a blast." She laughed. Things are going back to normal. Now we just have to find out who's ass that horseshoe is in and stitch that butt shut.