Woo Woo Woo Woo Woo

Posted On April 9, 2011

Woo woo woo woo woo. That’s the best I could do. Couldn’t figure out how else to convey the sound of a siren. We’ve all heard that noise before. And dependent upon where you might be, or what you might be doing your reaction could be quite different. It could range from ah, thank god (if you are in dire need of assistance), annoyance (if you’ve just spent 45 minutes trying to get your baby down to sleep only to find that they’ve woken to the high pitched sound looming nearby) to ah crap, busted, was I really speeding that much?

I’ve experienced all ends of this spectrum. Growing up as a city kid, hearing a siren was pretty common. In fact, it often caused a lot of excitement if it was close enough to your house because you could run to where they were going, and find out what exciting event prompted the arrival of emergency vehicles. Most times it wasn’t related to crime, but more an accident or some other public disturbance. I can remember one poor neighbor that was very disruptive which often resulted in a visit from the men with the flashing lights. I believe even as kids we called her Crazy Emma. I have to imagine she was mentally disturbed in some manner as it was nothing to find out that she had broken a window by tossing something out of it onto a passerby below. It may have been sad for her and her neighbors, but in a cruelish kind of way, it was fun for us because it added some level of the unexpected into our days.

Other times the siren brought sadness. But not for what you might think. It was pretty common practice back them to open the fire hydrant to cool off on those hot humid summer days. Gobs of kids used to run under the fire plug and some manipulated the water flow with their hands as cars and people went by to make it even more cool. You could hear the moans and groans when the fire department came by shut off the surging water. Of course it was the proper thing to do as it was extremely wasteful way to use the water and lowers the water pressure in case of a real fire, but boy it was awfully fun to run under (I’m assuming here as my mom never let us actually run under) and just plain amusing to watch.

True sadness was also delivered by the chorus of the sirens arriving as well. I’ll never forget running to arrive at the scene of a fire, only to find a grade school classmate traumatized as the fire trucks were responding to a call to his own home. Forever in my brain will be that awful look in his eyes and the image of someone holding him back as they were tossing scorched pieces of his life from the windows of the house. It caused a lump of melancholy in my throat and I prayed to myself that I would never have to experience that feeling first hand.

The woo woo woo can also, of course signal the sound of an ambulance. I still have the picture in my mind of a dear friend’s grandpop next door being rolled away in the stretcher and knowing by just looking at him (he had experienced a severe stroke) that their lives would never be the same.

In my own life, I’ve only had to call for the rescue once. Imagine me, gabbing and talking on the phone? I had been putting away laundry upstairs while talking to a friend (I am an incredible multi task maniac, by the way), when I a heard muffled, BARB! BARB! BARB! At the time I was annoyed, as I was thinking, good god Tom, I can barely hear you, do you think you can come get me so I can actually hear what you are saying? As I went to investigate, I came downstairs to find my husband literally on top Tommy (who was about 6 at the time), who was having a severe seizure. Holy crap. Tom and I are lucky enough to remain pretty calm in emergency situations. I got the phone right away and dialed 911. I explained the situation, and the dispatcher said help was promptly on the way–this to me, seemed like hours–later Tom described that they arrived in 3 – 4 minutes tops. She asked me to further describe his condition, and asked if I knew he was breathing. “Oh for god sakes!”, I stammered into the phone. He shaking all over the place with my husband needing to hold him down and his lips are blue, how on earth do you want me to figure out if he’s breathing? I’d have to guess not very much if his lips are blue lady–to which she said, “You know what? If your husband can take the phone, give it to him. You are not calm enough to talk to, go outside and direct the ambulance to your home.” Stunned was I, as I got yelled at by the 911 operator. I didn’t think I was that bad….I listened to her advice, as the seizure was beginning to subside, and luckily they did arrive in a short time and took him off to the hospital for observation. It was an extremely scary moment.

Timmy was only three-ish at the time and he witnessed the whole event first hand. I have to imagine since Tommy was unconscious as he was being rolled away in the stretcher that he was thinking his brother was dying. I happened to have flagged a neighbor down outside while he was returning home and asked him to keep Timmy since I didn’t know at the time how serious things were. I went along in the ambulance and remember thinking I wanted to drive the damn ambulance myself, the literally 3 minutes to the ER. Frustrated was I that we were sitting in my cul de sac for what seemed like forever as they are required to start an IV drip before transport and couldn’t find a vein. I guess I was starting to calm down as I figured if it were really serious that we would have been at the hospital already, but let me tell you, there is a ton of adrenaline flowing in such situations as evidenced by me getting lambasted by dispatch and wanting to choke the ambulance driver. All ended up turning out fine as it was most likely just caused by a recent fever. But boy was I glad that they were there so quickly. I remember Tommy being extremely pissed that he didn’t get to be awake for the ambulance ride and he was jealous that I could remember the whole thing.

Then there are the not so good times when you hear those musical sirens. My first negative encounter with our men in blue was when I offered to pick up a friend from the airport. The airport at the time was about an hour away from where I was living. My gal pal and I were chatting away about what she had missed while being away and what fun she had at her destination. I was just thinking to myself, damn it, I meant to turn there as I hate going through this 25 mile an hour zone. When, woo woo woo, the flashing lights appeared behind me from out of nowhere. Who me? What was I doin’? Apparently 47 in a 25. Nice. I did go to fight the ticket only to find that 75 percent of the people in the room were also there for the very same ticket. Anyone who tried to argue that it was a speed trap–just got slapped with the full fine and have a nice day. I was one of the last defendants in the room and I complained I was tired, it was rainy and it was dark on the night of the infraction. I just wasn’t paying attention. The judge was kind enough to lower my recorded speed and fine for my troubles, but I was still annoyed as I knew that was a speed trap area to avoid and was trying to do just that when I missed my turn and promptly got pulled over.

Another fine day, I was hauling around six kids in the back, enjoying the wind through my hair from the sunroof, and chatting it up with a friend when those vaguely familiar flashing lights loomed closely behind me in the distance once again. I think everyone must have a similar reaction to this–rolling your eyes and thinking, aw man, this is the last thing I need right now. When the officer came to my side, I pointed in the back and said, sorry sir I was just tad bit distracted–he took the requisite license and registration and ambled back to his cruiser. I can remember Timmy, a toddler in his carseat at the time yelling–hey mom, ya going to get arrested? God I hope not. Thankfully, the officer kindly let me off with a written warning, so I was much relieved by the time I drove away with my head bowed down in humiliation.

So it’s funny how differently that loud piercing sound can mean to each of us. Relief, annoyance or just plain old pissed. Ironic how it can trigger such a wide range of emotions. Let’s hope the next time you or I hear it, it’s a situation that’s not so bad to deal with….