Saturday September 29/2007
This morning shift started out like every other morning shift I have. The alarm went off at 4:30am, I reseted it for 5am and rolled back over into my nice warm bed that I so desperately did not want to leave to face the day ahead. 5am rolls around(mighty quickly i must add) I get out of bed trip over Meekah and start getting ready to go to work. Lance didn't work until 9 so he had to drive me into town, we left a little later then we usually do that day, about 5 minutes later according to my punch in card at work.
Anyways...
Got to work said "Good Morning" to my opening server and then started with my normal morning routine. At about quarter to 6 I started turning all my line equipment on, deep fryers, sally, steam table and flat tops. There are 4 different sets of dials to turn on two different flats(one flat is a three in one system). I turned on the third set of dials down the line and POOF a fire started! It was coming inside the flat and coming out the dial that I just turned on. This dial is also half ass broke so you never really if its on or off or and temperature it is on. So first thing I do is try and get the dial out so I can try and turn the dial off and stop the gas. Well that wasn't working, I put about 5 water bottles over it and nothing!! It was started to get bigger. I have worked in kitchen for 8 years and I've had my good share of fires, but none of them have ever started to scare me and this one was starting too! The fire started inside the flat were I was unable to get at it so the normal option of pouring salt on it wouldn't work. I decided that I needed help dealing with this one, I ran into the front and yelled to my server that there was a fire and I didn't help dealing with it. She came and tried salt and then said I think we should call the Fire Dept., then we found the fire extinguisher used that and we got it out. THANK GOD!

I didn't want to open the restaurant, to me it was still too unsafe. An extinguisher just went off there was still gas coming out and we still wanted to call the fire dept., so we called our GM to tell him what had happened. We were told to open on schedule. I was so upset. I didn't want to. So I made the fastest clean of my grills to get any trace of extinguisher stuff off my grills so not to get it in the food. The next person on in the kitchen came in about 20 minutes after 6 and I was almost in tears opening the back door, OMG whats wrong she said. I explained everything. She helped me clean the rest of the mess and told me that she could still smell the gas. I said I know, but can I do, but wait for the GM to come to work around 9ish. So we prompt open the back door(which is against another health code, but seems the lesser of two evils at the time)
so that the air would vent.

So work went on. My two 8 o'clock people were now in and the gas was getting stronger we thought. Finally the GM comes into work(by this time I already have a headache and my stomach was doing flips inside). I looked at him
and said "we had a fire this morning"
he replied "Yeah, I know"
"Well we shouldn't have opened, we used the fire extinguisher and it went everywhere"
"Well I wouldn't have used the fire extinguisher" as he looked at the grill.
One of my 8 o'clock guys told the GM that the gas smell was really bad when he came in.
"Oh well" the GM said "Nothing we can do until Monday"

Well I knew there was something we could do, he just didn't want to pay the extra money and he the guy come in and fix it on the weekend. Another hour goes by and the line cooks and I are now rotating "air breaks". We all don't feel that well anymore. My 8 o'clock guy says to the GM that this is unsafe and getting bad, the GM shrugged it off. So he said fine you come back here and take the egg flat. The GM never replied just walked away and from then on boycotted the kitchen. So we decided to take matters into our own hands.
We called the fire dept. told them that we had a fire earlier that morning and we could smell gas and that our GM wont lets us stop working.
They replied " we will be there right away".
After that call was made it was my turn for an "air break" so I went outside to sit. Next thing I know one of my prep people come outside and goes
"Ashley, guess what!? There are three fully dressed Fire Fighters on our line and I'm not joking"
I jumped up and ran inside and there they were and yes there was a gas leak. They looked at me and then asked what time did this start and I said "6am"(it now being 10:45am).
"WHAT" the Fire Fighter said.
"Since 6" he yelled down the line to the other Firemen.
The other Firemen the proceed to poll the fire alarm and everyone was told to evacuate customers and all. Only after the alarm was pulled did the GM decided to come and see what was going on. Were I work there are camera's all over the place, So there is no way that he would not have seen the Firemen all geared up come in through the front door and then proceed to the back area.
We all evacuated to the back parking lot. The look of death some of us got when the GM finally left the building.
After the gas was turned turned off we were told to go in and clean up. So we did. The guy came in to fix the pipe(it's amazing how something that couldn't get fixed until Monday got fixed that day when you get the place closed down by the Firemen and Police). Lance was on his way to come and get me now.. not a happy at all I might add. Went to tell them I'm leaving and the GM is saying that we're goin to open again soon. I said that I wasn't staying, that I was goin to the hospital now( my eyes were blood shot and burning, headache, felt like I was going to be sick and breathing was getting to become a really hard task) and my other cooks said they were going home too.
One cook asked the GM "why wasn't this dealt with this morning?"
"This morning, now what's the difference?" he replied.
Off to the hospital I went. The waiting room was full! I remember thinking that it was going to take forever to get it. Lance said no that I would be high priority. It wasn't until I had hospital stuff waiting for me to finish registering that I realized just how serious this was. I had a respiratory therapist in my room before I could even sit down. The gas in my lungs had started to expand and they didn't to flush it out fast. I was hooked up to heavy oxygen right away and for a few hours. I learned that to do blood work for a respiratory problem that they take blood from your wrist not your arm. The doctors couldn't believe what had happened. I got my WCB form saying that I was to have a few days off. Lance took my form to my GM and my GM couldn't even look him in the eyes when he was talking to him.
If I would have stayed and worked through my whole shift, I would have been leaving work in an ambulance.

In the end we did the right thing, the only thing I wish I could change is that we didn't do it sooner. It will be interesting to see how work will be on Wednesday when I go back.