Last Night

Last night was pretty eventful. I was working on the computer last night (surprise!) and heard a LOT of sirens, so I turned on our police scanner to see if I could hear what was happening. I heard that there was a garage fire 2 blocks over from our house. I didn't think too much of it and continued to work. Police were requesting ambulance assistance because someone got hurt. And they requested fire because while the fire was already put out it was still smoldering in the garage. All the sirens stopped and I thought that was the end of it.

Then about 30 min later I heard a helicopter. At first I thought it was just a random helicopter flying over, then when it circled around I thought it was the police one and they were looking for someone, but there was no spot light showing. It kept getting lower and lower so Jake and I went outside and saw that the school up a block from our house had the entrance blocked off by police because apparently the helicopter was landing in the parking lot. It was SO loud, everyone was coming outside to see what was going on. It sounded like it was landing on our roof. The neighbors said the helicopters have landed at the school before to airlift people away, so then I put 2 and 2 together. I realized what I heard on the police scanner of the garage fire was the same person getting airlifted at the school. We saw this article last night so some things may have been added since then but here it is:

Man badly burned by fire while working on race car in Antioch

By Roman Gokhman Contra Costa Times

Article Launched: 05/08/2008 10:16:03 PM PDT

ANTIOCH — A man working on a race car in front of a house was severely burned Thursday evening after the car's ethanol gasoline caught fire, according to the Contra Costa Fire Department. It was not immediately clear what started the fire at 8:53 p.m. in the 2700 block of Bautista Street, department Battalion Chief Kevin McCarthy said. It was contained four minutes later. The victim's name was not released by the fire department. He was taken by helicopter to a trauma center. It was not clear whether the injuries were life-threatening. "He had significant burns," McCarthy said.

This photo had the flash on but it didn't come out very well. This is the entrance blocked off. You can see in the distance more police cars and just beyond that is where the helicopter landed.

Then, just when we thought that was the end of that... at about 11:30pm I was watching TV and I heard yelling and cussing and arguing. So back out Jake and I go. I guess there were 2 groups of people fighting but it wasn't physical just loud and vulgar. They were walking down the street so it got really loud and then quieter about 10 minutes later as they passed our house.

What a night!