Just about a year ago today we (City of Buffalo) had a huge snowstorm that hit by surprise at rushhour. All the highways surrounding Buffalo where bumper to bumper traffic in 3 feet of snow. Me and a friend of mine are both professional firefighter/paramedics and the Hospitals and EMS systems were requesting people with snowmobiles to help. We live near Buffalo (20 miles away) and our city was not touched by the storm as we are just north of the lake effect snow belt. We trailered our sleds as close as possible to the major highway route that surrounds Buffalo. Words cannot even describe the sights we saw, picture in your mind an eight lane highway, with a center guard rail divider that surrounds Buffalo, 40-50 miles of highway, trucks, buses, vans and cars all stopped bumper to bumper in about 3 feet of snow, people just sitting in their cars staring as we went by, some people outside flagging us down,asking us what they should do, some with babies in their cars, others were diabetics without food. We had brought along a bunch of candy bars for the diabetics(when you take insulin, you have to eat) and made sure the people with small children had enough gas to keep their cars going. It was very weird because there were thousands of cars and we could only help a few. It was apocalyptic and very surreal. We weaved our way through the traffic and had to drive about 10 miles to the Erie County Medical Center. Along the way there, just off the exit to the hospital in a bad part of Buffalo, I had two different people point guns at me as I drove by, some people are idiots.
We made it to te hospital and the EMS dispatchers gave us a list of calls to go on in priority of the type emergency. 1st call, and I swear to you I am not making this up,a pregnant woman whose water just broke in her car, her husband was taking her to the hospital when the storm hit. He called from his cell phone and told us the general area were we could find his car. Took us about 15 minutes to find them. The pregnant woman got on the back of my friends sled and the husband on the back of mine. we drove them 3 miles into South Buffalo to a waiting ambulance. Most of the other calls were diabetics who needed insulin, which the hospital supplied us with along with the needles. We did this all night long and got home at 7am the next morning. That was absolutely the most excitement I have ever had on my snowmobile, and probably will ever have.
He who loves not his country can love nothing
We made it to te hospital and the EMS dispatchers gave us a list of calls to go on in priority of the type emergency. 1st call, and I swear to you I am not making this up,a pregnant woman whose water just broke in her car, her husband was taking her to the hospital when the storm hit. He called from his cell phone and told us the general area were we could find his car. Took us about 15 minutes to find them. The pregnant woman got on the back of my friends sled and the husband on the back of mine. we drove them 3 miles into South Buffalo to a waiting ambulance. Most of the other calls were diabetics who needed insulin, which the hospital supplied us with along with the needles. We did this all night long and got home at 7am the next morning. That was absolutely the most excitement I have ever had on my snowmobile, and probably will ever have.
He who loves not his country can love nothing
