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When it roars outside on our balcony and flames shoot into the air, it's not a dragon
It’s a hot air balloon. The one we saw tonight was very low and we wondered if it would clear the trees, or the playground.
Another friend came up the hill from the concrete cathedral, because she thought the balloon wouldn’t clear that either.
The fields beyond the playground would normally be an excellent place to land a balloon, but the mown hay has already been drying for a few days.
Usually, horses are in this field and the shed behind the balloon was too close to let the balloon captain deflate the balloon. She stood with her arms over her head, pulling the burner levers and a bunch of volunteers came to hold down the basket.
They had made an emergency landing, because someone fell ill during the flight. The paramedics and the firefighters had to work together to reach into the deep basket and retrieve the person on the bottom. I didn’t realize that the basket was divided into compartments, with the biggest one in the center, full of fuel containers and the pilot / captain. The other compartments are small and square and deep. No place to sit down but the floor of the basket and no room to do that.
The balloon people asked for volunteers to weigh down the basket and later to hold onto the tethering ropes.
#Protip: Balloon rescuers need heavy gloves
Open flame and electric fence and shed.
The balloon captain had to figure out how to get the balloon folded up. The sun was setting so it was too late to continue on. The balloon landed in the last possible spot before the dense forest of the Kottenforst.
Here the firefighters ran across the field to help the paramedics. The youth firefighters did their part, unrolling hoses and standing at the ready.
I don’t have a photo, because I was helping to hold the balloon basket down. The balloon pilot said that the basket was not allowed to get wet.
Three groups of people held three long tethers to keep the balloon on the ground, while the pilot kept the burner going to keep the balloon from collapsing. When I sat on the edge of the basket, I thought the flames would burn my hair. You could feel the heat on the back of your neck.
Everyone was slapping mosquitoes and the passengers had to stay in the basket as human ballast.
Once the firefighters and paramedics had their patient out of the basket, the pilot decided to have us push the basket to the electric fence.
She invited some passengers to get out, but not all, and fired up the burners even more. The group of kids that were holding down the balloon with the heavy balloonist gloves had to let the ropes go a little bit.
Then we all pushed the basket sideways across the field, over the manure piles and grass, until the basket was at the fence.
Then everyone could get out and the pilot turned off the burner and the firefighters and everyone helping used the big tether ropes to keep the collapsing balloon out of the electric fence.
The firefighters and emergency vehicles left, and we all helped roll up the balloon in a long sausage.
I don't know how they got the two ton basket over the electric fence.
I asked one passenger if she wanted to fly further in the balloon, and she said,”Der Luft ist raus” meaning “no” but also literally meaning “the air has been let out.”
The kids in the neighborhood were all fired up :). One rode by on his bike and shouted that this would all be in the newspaper tomorrow. There was at least one kid in his pajamas at the rescue.
The future is in good hands!
Want a hot air balloon rescue for the whole family?
When I came back from all the excitement, this graphic was on my computer screen. I was working on it when the hot air balloon came by.
In the second Seven Kingdoms Fairy Tale: Lost With Leeks, hot air balloon rescues are a huge part of the action!
#ProTip: Flying reindeer and hot air balloons don’t mix.
The Blackfly Queen put St. Nicholas in the dungeon and Prince Nero has to rescue him before December 6th!
Have you already read Lost With Leeks? Check out the Deleted Scenes or be a super-duper hero or heroine and leave a review at your favorite online retailer and rescue someone who needs a book!
So much help arrived! Our village did its duty.
