As you read this article, I am either in my final preparations to leave, or I am boarding a plane, bound for South Africa. This trip will mark my seventh journey to Africa since 2009. Every trip has contained it’s own unique characteristics and this one is no exception. I will depart with a team from Mt. Pleasant Baptist Church on Wednesday evening, around 5:40 p.m., from Dulles. We should arrive in Johannesburg at about 5:30 p.m. their time on Thursday evening, 11:30 a.m. our time. This trip will start like most others, but will take on a new look,…

One of the intersections that I travel through regularly is Curtis St. & West Hundred Road (Rt. 10). For anyone that has attempted to make the right turn from Curtis St. onto West Hundred Road. to the east, you know what a drastic change needs to occur. The ability to see fast moving traffic was obscured by bushes and the curve, as vehicles approach that intersection from Chester. My wife and I would state regularly that this needs to be a no right turn on red. The weekend that this changed, and yes it did change, was the epitome of…

Two 14-year old boys are missing at sea from a fishing trip. As I watched this story, I felt that I had no choice but to weigh in on this tragedy. My experience with a scenario like this one takes me back to my Coast Guard days and a long couple of weeks with Chesterfield Fire & EMS. The two periods that I referenced dealt a tragedy with two men who were declared missing in the Pamlico Sound, while the second involved two teenagers who lost their lives in Swift Creek Reservoir after their canoe capsized. Some may say that…

Last Friday, we took a day trip to Nags Head. We staked our beach claim near Jeanette’s Pier close to the lifeguard stand. It was a beautiful day, with temperatures in the low- to mid-80s and a breeze off the ocean. Being close to the lifeguard station, we found ourselves in the midst of constant activity. Flying from the lifeguard stands were yellow flags that stated “Dangerous Currents.” The red four-wheelers that were used by the mobile lifeguards had a safety message on the back that read: “If in doubt, don’t go out.” There were crowds of people on this…

You have read, many times over the need for adequate numbers of properly operating smoke alarms in your home. You have also read about the need to perform exit drills in your home to ensure that everyone wakes up when the smoke alarms are activating. The third thing that I know you have read in my articles is to stay low and go until you get outside to your designated, safe meeting place. These three items should be givens in your family’s home escape plan in the event of a fire. Since some of you think that this will never…

After my retirement from the fire service, I let my paramedic certification expire. I guess that many believe “once a paramedic, nurse or doctor, always one.” Many of my immediate, extended and church family still come to me when an injury or illness occurs. Last week was no exception, as one of the children had hit her foot on a tree, swinging in one of the swings attached to that tree. It had happened prior to my arrival in West Virginia, but she was still having issues with it. I was asked if I would look at it and give…

With more hot and humid days ahead of us, I thought that I would write an article on dealing with the heat. Working or playing in extreme heat requires preparation. The first means of preparation is to hydrate, hydrate and hydrate. Hydrating is a lot like pain management, once you get behind, it is hard to catch up, or especially to get ahead of it. Adequate hydration shows itself in the frequency of urination and the color of your urine. Pardon me for the personal aspect of that last sentence, but you need to know the indicators of good hydration.…

When the storms hit Doswell last night, wouldn’t you know it, we were there. We took our students to King’s Dominion/Kingsfest, as a “fun” culmination to a week of hard work and heat. We all know that when it gets this hot that big storms are coming. This was the epitome of those storms. It started around dinnertime with a small storm. It was still raining, but we made our way over to the amphitheatre, where Tenth Avenue North was performing. Three songs later, they stopped the concert, stated that storms were coming and evacuated everyone to the pavilions. We…

I am going to attempt to use information from three fires to glean learning points that will hopefully prepare you, in the event of a future fire. The fires that I will use are as follows: the wind-driven fire in Corolla, NC, that destroyed three buildings; a single-family dwelling fire in eastern Henrico that claimed the life of one and critically injured another and an Indiana house fire, where the homeowners were trapped because they could not escape through the narrow windows in their home. I could write an article on each of these fires, but my hope is to…

Normally I try to write proactive articles about things that may have happened in the past, but had not happened prior to the writing of my article, hoping to prevent something from occurring. This article is completely reactive to something that happened to my wife and I. My wife had a benign tumor removed from her parotid gland, on the right side of her neck. After a long time in recovery, I was able to bring her home. She did pretty well during the night, other than having to sleep in my recliner. We had to go to the West…