Always put the seat down.

We responded to a triple structure fire one august. This was in a rather fancy neighborhood where they had wooden shingled roofs, so the fire kept jumpin from roof to roof catchin everything it touched ablaze. Needless to say a single fire is a feat in incident command, and that day our problems were tripled. We try very hard to keep abreast of the situation and highly discourage men from freelancing or wanderin off with out a plan. We came to realize we couldn't find one of the other captains, so a search was mounted.

I grabbed a flashlight, radio and two rookies and was gonna show them a rapid V.E.S. (Ventilate, Enter, Search) We headed down the block to the most involved house and ran around back. I smashed the window, got a boost up and slid inside. I stepped down and realized my boot was stuck. Bout this time one of my two newbies got a runnin start and came crashin thru the pane onto me. I started hollerin for #2 not to come in since we were a jumbled pile of gear and body parts. Luckily he stopped short. We untangled, but I realized my boot was still stuck. The fire conditions were rapidly deteriorating, we just got a radio call my fellow captain had been found down the street unhurt, and my rookie was on the verge of panic. I was squintin, try to tell what had ahold of me.

The heat was tremendous, and I had to drop to the floor on my back since my foot was caught about two feet off the floor. My trainee kept feelin round, tryin to figure out what I was stuck in. He kept sayin somethin bout how smooth it was, what could it be? etc. Bout this time I was really startin to git nervous myself. Finally, he bumped somethin, and it made an unmistakable noise. Y'all have all heard it before, the sound of a toilet tank lid scraping on the tank. That's right Capt. KB was stuck in the toilet. We used an axe to smash the pot and jumped outta the window. I hit the ground and looked at my rookies and just said "Damnit" They were afraid I was mad at them, so they started apologizing.

I finally let em know I wasn't mad, just surprised my Mom was right.

You should always put the seat down when you were done usin the toilet - Never know who is gonna fall in!