Ice, Ice Baby.

When you are born and raised in a land dubbed "the frozen tundra" daily errands are rarely hindered by a little or even a lot of snow. You learn to drive through drifts that tower over your tires and how to appropriately encourage those in front of you that are paralyzed by fear as they slowly navigate the snowflake mine field. On the other hand, even the most daring Cheeseheads fear ice. If you don't respect it, it will learn your ass right quick. To illustrate this fact, let me tell you a little story...

It was one of those nights you prepare your gear as best as you can for the storm front that is currently tearing through your zip code, and every surrounding zip code for at least 40 miles. I have always lived by the code of being prepared with gear set out and wool socks on in bed which generally means a full night of blissful, uninterrupted sleep. This fateful night, I crawled into bed after double checking my gear and setting it as close to the radiator as possible... just in case. Much to my dismay the shrill beeping of my pager ripped me from my dreams of tropical beaches where the only thing frozen is the drink in my hand. Slowly, I dug my old, but faithful two wheel drive Chevy from the blanket of heavy snow and started my way towards the call. My time out should have been about 5 minutes in good weather, but tonight I spent a good ten minutes crawling to the scene.

As I approached, I saw a car delicately wrapped around a telephone pole. Eager to do what I did best, I opened my truck door and stepped onto the road. Little did I know, this east-west road flanked by barren farm fields was a perfect venue for Disney on Ice. One foot out and that same foot flying away from me at a speed that would make the Blue Angels green with envy. But wait! Where is my other foot? Now let me just say, back in my gymnast days, I was a rubberband-like force to be reckoned with. I didn't go by the nickname Gumby for no good reason, but this was not high school and I was no longer the nimble 17 year old. With one boot still stuck in the cab and the other doing a triple loop, I found myself toppling over face first into the glistening pavement while fearing the worst for the crotch of my turnout pants.

Of course, falling is pretty common for my graceful self in good weather and in bad. Regardless, a pair of concerned EMTs (who of course were not needed to tend to the patient) and a firefighter or two took notice of my plight and attempted to shuffle slowly towards me. They didn't need to use much effort to shuffle as the wind forced them forward against their will. They were making great progress until one went down, grabbing the coat of the next and before they knew it, they were a pile of helpless helpers. While the uninjured patient was carefully removed from the crumpled mess of a vehicle, the rescuer's rescuers removed themselves from the ground. Now I know laughing on a scene is quite unacceptable in most cases, but at this point, there was nothing left to do. The patient was okay and so were we, except a little ding to a couple of now sore egos. Of course we still needed to report back to command so I came up with a genius solution. I decided that my jump kit would make a perfect chauffeur across the road. That's right, I sat on top of that jump kit and scootered myself across the ice. I must say, it worked like a charm. The rest of the call went by fall free and thankfully everyone returned home without injury, minus some bruises to various limbs and hind quarters.

So what did we learn from Bernice's little run in with gravity? That's right class. Scene safety. We look up, we look around, but never forget to look down.