Though bow season has been in since the beginning of October, black powder season begins on Saturday. It is a requirement of our club that anyone using a black powder gun or a rifle must shoot from an elevated stand. In other words, many of us will climb tree stands. You may not remember, but in 2002 the ladder of a wooden tree stand broke away from the ground, dropping me about eight feet. I hit a stump with my left arm, breaking my collarbone. Though there are still a few wooden stands left, most of our stands are privately…

T here are not many times when I am outside that I do not hear the siren and air horn of a piece of fire apparatus, an ambulance, or a police car, responding to a call for help somewhere in Chesterfield County. For fire and EMS, the large majority of calls for help are medical in nature, but fire departments still run a fair amount of fire-related incidents. The bread and butter of the fire service is the single-family dwelling, with the number one cause still being unattended cooking. There may be days when a certain fire cause, such as…

M y wife and I are finishing up a trip to Gloucester, Mass., and Bar Harbor, Maine. We will start for home tomorrow. Choices of travel could be plane, train, boat, bus or automobile; our choice is pickup truck. This being the case, the fastest route will take 12 hours 40 minutes, per Google Maps. The only problem with this route is I-95, which includes a ride around Boston and a skirting of New York City. This was no fun coming north, so we are considering a more western track south, meeting up with I-81. This will mean an additional…

T his upcoming week is recognized by the National Fire Protection Agency and the fire service as Fire Prevention Week. This year’s theme is “Don’t Wait-Check the Date.” What it means is that smoke alarms need to be replaced if they are ten years old or older. The message normally centers on changing batteries, proper placement, and regular testing. This is the first time that I remember a theme that focuses on replacing old smoke alarms. This would be a good time, if you do not have a CO detector, to replace your smoke alarm with a combination detector. If…

Single-family and multi-family dwelling fires occur every day somewhere in our nation. Sadly, three firefighters have lost their lives in Delaware and New York City. The point of firefighters losing their lives indicates the danger of the job and the fact that something went catastrophically wrong. The question would you be prepared, if a fire were to occur in your home? Let’s go through a checklist and see. Have you done a fire safety inspection in your home recently? The kitchen would be the place to start. More fires start in the kitchen than any other place in your home.…

We have witnessed the worst of America over the last few days. Violence, rioting, and looting has been occurring in Charlotte, N.C. This has been an ongoing trend across our great nation. The question is, why? The trigger to every one of these incidents has involved police officers and the death of, in many cases, an African American male. Whether it is an officer-involved shooting or attempting to transport a prisoner, all have led to mayhem on our city streets. Racism is a problem in our nation. Admitting that it exists is the beginning step in resolving it. Some believe…

A s we watch the news from the New York and New Jersey bombings as well as the stabbings in Minnesota, I have just returned from Nairobi, Kenya. Traveling internationally causes you to see many of the changes that have occurred due to terrorism, whether in airports or shopping centers. One problem that I see is that, even though we have become more vigilant to stop these people, there are still many things yet to be done. We have heard many times that while law enforcement must get it right over and over, a terrorist only has to get it…

As we prepare to leave for the beach tomorrow, I am thankful that Invest 99L has not materialized into more than a rainmaker at this point. We are now at the height of hurricane season. Tropical waves come off of the west coast of Africa and make their track across the Atlantic. Even with superb, advanced technology, there is still no way to know exactly what these storms will do. Some waves will encounter favorable strengthening conditions, becoming a hurricane, while others will encounter things like wind sheer and have a hard time developing into a tropical depression. Whatever the…

As summer comes to an end, many schools have already been in session for the last three weeks. Schools in this area will begin the 2016-2017 school year on Sept. 6. As students get ready to return to school, we, too, must prepare ourselves for their return. What do I mean? Traffic around school zones has not lessened, but has increased, while school buses will be back on the roads, picking up some students in the wee hours of the morning. Drivers must give themselves more time by leaving earlier each day. Most schools have a school crossing, whether or…

In my years as a paramedic/firefighter, I responded to my fair share of heroin overdoses. The amount of the drug taken and the time of our arrival after the overdose had everything to do with a good outcome versus a bad one. Though it was a problem in my days of riding an engine, ladder, or ambulance, heroin overdoses have become pandemic, in our day. We live in a society where people have cocooned themselves in their homes, oblivious to everything happening around them. My wife read me a story from Huntington, W. Va., where 27 people had overdosed on…