The Old Swedish Firetruck

[FranEMTnurse, CNA, LPN, EMT-I]

One dark night outside a small town in Wisconsin, a fire started inside

The local chemical plant and in a blink of an eye, it exploded into

massive

flames.

The alarm went out to all the fire departments for miles around. When

the

volunteer fire fighters appeared on the scene, the chemical company

president rushed to the fire chief and said, "All of our secret formulas

are in the vault in the center of the plant. They must be saved. I will

give $50,000 to the fire department that brings them out intact."

But the roaring flames held the fire-fighters off. Soon more fire

departments had to be called in as the situation became desperate. As the

firemen arrived, the president shouted out that the offer was now $100,000

to the fire department who could bring out the company's secret files.

From the distance, a lone siren was heard as another fire truck came

into sight. It was the nearby Swedish rural township volunteer fire company

composed mainly of Swedes over the age of 65.

To everyone's amazement, that little run-down fire engine roared right

past all the newer sleek engines that were parked outside the plant. Without

even slowing down, it drove straight into the middle of the inferno.

Outside, the other firemen watched as the Swedish old timers jumped off

right in the middle of the fire fought it back on all sides. It was a

performance and effort never seen before. Within a short time, the old

timers had extinguished the fire and had saved the secret formulas.

The grateful chemical company president announced that for such a

superhuman feat he was upping the reward to $200,000 and walked over to

personally thank each of the brave fire fighters.

The local TV news reporter rushed in to capture the event on film, asking

their chief "what are you going to do with all that money?"

"Vell," said Ole Larson the 70-year-old fire chief, "da first thing ve

gonna do is.. fix da brakes on dat blinking truck."