FireStorm 2007 and Naked Juice and Kit Carson Park and bomb sniffing dogs!

Thursday morning started off with Amanda Zweifel-Jones, one of our patients picking up 700 bottles of Naked Juice donated by Naked Juice after yesterdays phone call. They really came through doing it with just a single phone call to someone they never knew before!

Amanda packed it into her husbands truck, covered it with ice, and tied it down!

The crew was ready to roll. We had Roseanna, my trusted sidekick, Amanda, Hector, our muscle was back again, and today Cheng Cheng who is in charge of Accounts Receivable int the office joined us.

We went back to Kit Carson Park in Escondido where my wife and I had gone last night. It looked totally different in the day time. It was San Diego’s Fire Camp now, just like the one that was set up during the Cedros fire. It has a place to get food, showers, a medical tent, and grassy places to sleep.

The name of the place was Kit Carson Park in Escondido.

Cheng Cheng went right to work handing out juice to the fire fighters. At this point reinforcements from all over the western half of the U.S. had arrived. This truck was from Northern California from Bodega Bay.

This fire fighter had driven in from Hualapai Valley which I think is in Arizona.

I love how this shot came out with the sun rising over the truck.

Our happy Cheng Cheng Lok also representing her sorority from UCSD. She happens to be the president and was out setting a good example for the rest of the sisters!

Another satisfied customer.

The guys were thrilled to get the juice!

The culture around Fire Fighting with its logos and emblems is fascinating. I am sure someone has made a career of just studying that.

A Millbrae Fire Fighter ready to receive his adjustment.

We then ended up moving over to main lunch center where there were hundreds of guys.

Many of the young guys had never received a chiropractic treatment before. They were stiff and sore from days of fire fighting the San Diego Firestorm and when they saw the more seasoned veterens getting help they just lined up.

There was a group of people waiting around to get adjusted. Amanda also had a steady flow of guys wanting massages. It was a non stop demand for chiropractic and I just kept sweating, and cracking! It was a testament to chiropractic that it seemed like a very large number of the older fire fighters, meaning age 50 and up, had been going to chiropractors for years or decades, and that many of the younger ones had not.

Now it could be that the younger ones just had not had any pain yet, or what I think is more likely, that the older ones who went to chiropractors over their careers managed to stay on duty, while the ones who did not go to chiropractors had more injuries that did not heal and had to eventually retire. I think if someone has access to that data a quick review of it might save the countries fire departments billions of dollars per year in workers compensation costs.

At one point a woman came by and waved a thick plastic wand over my table. I half jokingly asked her if she was looking for bombs? She said no, and then asked if I had any knives or other weapons. I said I did not but I had these, and brought out my crazy conglomerate of keys. It was a bad idea I had that each of my keys should have its own quick release hook. I bought all the hooks and put it all together, and now I have a huge metal mass in my pocket. She said that it was fine.

I then started to notice in the crowd of fire fighters guys who did not quite fit in. The fire fighters are anything but stand up straight, speak politely, and don’t joke! kinda guys. They are casual, can be coarse, are always covered with a little dirt at the fires, and are full of love and compassion. These guys looked a little more rigid and less loving, so I started paying attention to who they were.

It turned out that the pretty lady with the wand and the nice woman in the next photo with the bomb sniffing dog were part of the navy. The hot girl with the serious face turned out to be secret service. She was extremely aware, competent and on top of her game, and smooth as silk in dealing with me and the staff. The president should be proud of her.

It started to get more and more activity like this around us, and then we figured out what was going on. The president of the United States was about to arrive. Unfortunately we had to get back to our patients waiting at the office before we got to see George W.

I think the bomb sniffing shepard wanted to get adjusted too. He knew a good thing when he saw it.

This pooch looked really cool and so was his owner. I have watched a lot of Navy CSI lately, so I felt like I knew her! I asked her if he was pet-able. She said go ahead!

I do feel slightly guilty because in the middle of all of this death and destruction me and the staff had a blast. We just had so much fun helping the fire fighters and they were in such a good playful mood that we all had a ball! That by the way is a smile on his face while I check his neck. (I am actually just petting this killer navy pooch 😉

This guy had a fantastic undersea tattoo up his arm. Tattoos may not be for everyone, but they add to the fire fighter image!

We then had a couple of news crews show up and start filming us.

The guy with the big camera I believe was from a Sacramento station, but don’t quote me on that.

The young crew wanted to do an interview with me. I grabbed Roseanna because she makes me look better, well maybe in comparison she makes me look worse, but I look tons cooler with her! I asked them what station they were with and it turns out that they are with the Carlsbad High School Television station. I got excited and told them that I am one of their viewers. I have caught a few Carlsbad high school shows in the past. A few have been football games and the other one was on something more scholarly!

Naked juice should put this one on a bill board! Naked juice should be very proud of their 720 or so bottles donated, which if my estimates are right, works out to be almost one bottle per fire fighter stationed at this Fire Camp.

As we were leaving I ran into Steve Bosh from the KUSI news team. My recent research let me know that Steve has won multiple Emmey awards. I personally thanked him for his excellent coverage of the fires. Each night this week after helping the fire fighters I would come home and watch T.V. What I saw over the first few days was that many of the news casters on other stations created a sense of panic and worry, literally scolding the audience that if if they were in an evacuation area to “GET OUT NOW!” It got to a point where I could no longer watch the station we were on.

I had personally been in close communication with the fire fighters each day, and none of them looked even the slightest bit concerned with losing. They knew they would put out the fire!

I switched over to KUSI and Steve and Kimberly Hunt were both on and as calm as could be. Their delivery of the news was straight forward, factual and precise. It made me feel better listening to their even handed delivery of the news.

In my days as an Ocean Lifeguard in Laguna Beach I learned quickly that in Emergency situations to look, analyze and act quickly, quietly and with efficiency. KUSI news should be publicly thanked for helping to maintain an analytical viewpoint in the middle of a very real situation that needed to be addressed without added panic and stress.

These are more of the prisoners who came out to help. I can just imagine the freedom they must feel to get to be out of the prison, out under the sunshine, and most importantly knowing that they are helping. When I yelled from the car asking if I could take a picture, they jumped up enthusiastically!

We had to run to get back to the office before the rush at 12:00. We still had a few cases of Naked Juice left. This gentleman was happy to stock up the truck for later. Can you even imagine what it would be like to be in the middle of a huge brush fire, smoke everywhere, 130 degrees, you have been sweating like a pig inside your thick suit, and you go back in the truck and have fresh squeezed juice! Now that is living!

Cheng Cheng looking adorable and offering a box of juice to her next truck!

Hector, the muscle of our group, carrying some of the final loads to prepare the fire fighters for their next run.

Another tilted fire truck. Fascinating.

We left Cheng Cheng and Amanda near the entrance to the Fire Camp. Cheng Cheng later told us as the trucks came by, she would yell up to them, “Want some juice?” She would then have to climb up on her toes and reach up to the guys in these huge trucks and they would stock up!

As we left the president had not yet arrived. These people were waiting on the sidewalk outside hoping to catch a glimpse.

Big thanks go to all the fire fighters who risked their lives for the protection of San Diego. You guys went big, and gave one for the team. Good job on staying a few inches ahead of the flames and not getting killed! Also a huge thanks to my crew who helped their crew. My wife was the support crew of the support crew of the fire fighters. My patients jumped in, my wife even went out into the dark passed armed millitary and police with me to hand out burritos while I adjusted fire fighters in the dark, and spent our money on juice and power bars before we could get donations. Roseanna Wheeler, and Cheng Cheng Lok both pitched in before work. Hector and Amanda our patients came and helped. Orie Roberts our resident cartoonist and artist worked hard with the photos to allow me to keep the blog updating as we went, and Naked juice kicked in big time without asking questions. They just said when, where, and how much? Kevin Kupper of Chipotle of Pacific Beach just said o.k. doc, and then got on the phone and asked the Poway store to get rolling on the burritos. I also thank all of the police and National Guard to let me through into evacuated areas that were closed off to the public. It meant so much to us to be able to help those who really needed it and you guys understood!

There will be a few more blogs about things I learned from this event that can help the firefighters in the future, and an important message that one of the firefighters asked me to pass on. I know the fire is not out yet, but it is vastly reduced in size from where it was and there are major, major reinforcements of manpower and equipment that have arrived. So I am going to retire from volunteer hotspot firefighters chiropractor, and go back to saving the world at a slightly slower pace 🙂 Watch this blog for more important info about the fire in the upcoming weeks.

I leave you with this next picture as our last photo of the blog. As we headed toward the freeway on Thursday, Roseann took a picture of herself just for fun. What this picture captures though is a fine woman I know who gives her life for the helping of others through chiropractic. Then with not enough sleep, has gotten up early every day this week to help fire fighters with chiropractic, and later in the week with food and fresh squeezed juice. You can’t fake a look like she has on her face, it is the look of satisfaction of a job well done, of helping when it was needed with no one asking, of giving of yourself until it hurts and not asking for anything in return.