NFPA Journal - Fall 2021 - 21

Dispatches Oddities
HUH?
RECENT HEAD-SCRATCHERS
FROM THE WORLD OF FIRE
AND LIFE SAFETY
HO, HO, UH-OH
Did Santa Claus come early in Henderson,
Nevada, this year? Not quite. But a
teenage girl did try to enter her home
through the chimney in June. It didn't
go well.
According to the Las Vegas
Review-Journal, the 18-year-old tried to
squeeze through her home's chimney
after getting locked out. When she got
stuck just above the flue, a neighbor
phoned 911. Firefighters spent about 30
minutes extracting the girl.
" Henderson firefighters are trained
for confined space rescue and pulled
the uninjured girl to safety, " the department
said, according to the newspaper.
It appears the girl was lucky to have
been rescued-many others have met a
sadder fate after getting stuck. In 2015,
vice.com published an article titled " A
Brief History of People Getting Stuck in
Chimneys and Dying, " which informed
readers that " chimneys are death traps.
They have been for hundreds of years. "
Guess again.
In June, a couple of days before
Mountain Creek Water Park was set
to open for the season in Vernon, New
Jersey, a massive fire broke out on a
water slide named High Anxiety. Photos
posted on Facebook by the local fire
department show large orange flames
and thick black smoke leaping out of
the tube-shaped slide.
" We are grateful to the Vernon and
other local responding volunteer fire
and EMS departments, as well as the
Vernon Police, who responded within
minutes to help extinguish the fire, " a
spokesman for the park said, according
to NJ.com. " While we are certainly
disappointed that we won't have High
Anxiety available for the foreseeable
future, we know that our resilient team
is ready to welcome guests back this
weekend for our season opening. " It's
unclear what caused the blaze.
Tri-state residents of a certain age
may recognize Vernon as the site of
Action Park, which operated in the
1980s and 1990s at the same location
as Mountain Creek Water Park. The
legendary water and amusement park
was known for slides and other rides
designed with apparently little to no
engineering input. The vast number
of injuries sustained at the park-in
addition to a few deaths-earned it the
nickname " Class Action Park " before it
was shuttered in 1996.
DOLLS OF DECEPTION
In June, passersby looked on in
horror as a naked woman lay floating
face down in the water off the coast
of Hachinohe, Japan.
First responders rushed to the
scene and prepared to rescue the
victim. But the woman they pulled
out of the water wasn't a woman at
all-she turned out to be a blow-up
doll.
Tanaka Natsuki, a popular JapaEVERYTHING
BURNS
What's the least likely thing that could
burn? A water slide, maybe?
nese YouTuber, was watching as the
incident unfolded. " It seems someone
misunderstood what it was and called
the authorities, so a ton of police, fire
trucks, and ambulances showed up.
Thankfully the 'wife' was safely rescued.
Nice, " she tweeted.
According to Newsweek, there have
been several instances of such dolls
being mistaken for bodies over the
years.
In July 2020, police in Allenhurst,
Georgia, responded to reports of a
dead body on train tracks; the body
turned out to be a blow-up doll. In a
testament to how life-like these inflatable
creations can be, the officers who
responded to the Georgia incident
reportedly even covered the doll with a
sheet before a coroner arrived on scene
and determined it wasn't an actual
person.
SUDS SAVE
Who needs firebreaks or air tankers
when you have beer?
In June, two Arizona teenagers and
another man were credited with extinguishing
a wildfire before it could grow
out of control. Their suppression agent?
A 20-pack of beer.
According to local news reports, the
teens were driving to work early in
the morning when they saw a budding
wildfire on the side of the road. They
stopped, got out of their car, and started
kicking dirt onto the smoldering brush
and cacti. Another man driving by
stopped to help-and he happened to be
transporting 240 ounces of brew, which
he apparently then transferred into a
water-carrying backpack for use as a
firefighting tool.
" We were just kicking dirt into trees,
kicking dirt onto cactuses, and this man
just came out [with] a CamelBak®
full of
beer, " one of the teenagers told 12 News
in Phoenix.
It's not the first time beer has been
used to put out a fire. In September
2019, in an incident described in the
November/December 2019 " Oddities "
section of NFPA Journal, a German man
put out a fire in his car's engine using
beer. " Bottoms up, fire's out, " the Associated
Press reported after the incident.
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NFPA Journal - Fall 2021

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