Man on Fire

I haven't blogged in a while and after coming across an article in Marketing News about blogging I realized I need to get back in touch. I'm trying to figure out the best method to leverage blogging to help create a word of mouth buzz about The National Alliance. I suppose locating our current users who blog is my first hurdle. We already have plenty of satisfied customers, now we have to directly communicate with those who blog so we are on their minds, and in their blogs.

But enough about that. Back to the Man on Fire.

Friday after work, I set about cleaning, doing laundry and just generally tidying up. I had plans to go to a friend's house in a little bit and was just preparing to leave. All of a sudden my smoke alarm goes off -- and it is LOUD. But there is no smoke, and no fire. So I hurry up and try to figure out how I am going to disable it. I have tall ceilings. I have no kitchen table. Thus, no chairs to balance on. I have a stool, a short stool. Doesn't quite do the trick. I'm trying not to panic, but the shriek of the alarm makes that hard to do. So I grab the plastic bin that stores my summer clothes and put the stool on top of that. I gingerly climb atop this delicate makeshift ladder. (I know you think you know where this story is going, but no, I did not fall, and the story is just beginning.) I get up and dismantle the alarm, but alas, I realize it is not the smoke alarm, but the building fire alarm that is on my wall.

Realizing it might be someone else's apartment on fire I run outside. Meanwhile mentally preparing what in addition to my dog and cat I will rescue if necessary ... All I can come up with is shoes. I see a young man downstairs and ask him what happened. He says he had a kitchen fire but it's out but he's got a little burn. So I run back inside and grab the lidocaine. I really feel like a nurse to the rescue until I get downstairs with the spray and upon closer inspection realize the skin is bubbled and melting off his right arm. Yep, guess lidocaine won't really do the trick here.

But this young man is taking this very well for as bad as his arm looks. Not to mention his legs are speckled in black as the fire singed (sp?) his leg hair. He says his arm hurts. Duh. He has already called 911. So I attempt to distract him, since there is nothing else I can really do until the ambulance arrives and I can imagine the intense pain. I can't even look at the wound, or think about it now, without cringing. So we chat about where he's from, his daughter (who thankfully wasn't there), my pets, etc. until the firemen arrive.

Jason, I think that was his name, was taken away and I still haven't run into him since then. Hopefully he is doing better, I feel terrible for him. Not to mention that his apartment was flooded from the sprinklers.

But what is my take away from this story? Besides the obvious fact that I do well under pressure ;) Don't try to fry your own food. That's how the fire started and I have heard that story many times. If you want fried fish go to freakin' Red Lobster!