May 13, 2016… My job as a firefighter often shows me the horrible sides of life. Other times, it has an uncanny ability to completely restore my faith….

…Ever have something happen to you that in the grand scheme of things is a small act, but it instantly restores your faith in mankind? It happened to me tonight. My engine was dispatched to a call on the side of Highway 27 that absolutely ruined our patient’s day/night to put it lightly. It was nearly midnight and raining almost sideways. Terrible working conditions which is often the case in my line of work. Anyway, my guys and our ambulance crew are doing what we can with what we’ve got in this monsoon trying to help this person. When you’re helping someone in need you kinda block out all the distractions like the rain and wind and focus on the task at hand, but there’s always a little pesky voice telling you “this rain sucks…it’s cold…it’s hot…I can’t see…etc.” Tonight, for some reason, my subconscious voice that’s usually nagging and even sometimes cynical said, “You’re completely dry.” I don’t know why. It was almost like someone (and I believe it was) was saying in that split second, “Hey dummy, look around for a second at the blessings I gave you.” So naturally I look up and there are I think two, could’ve possibly been three, men standing above and around all of us fire/police/EMS workers holding big umbrellas and blocking the rain off of us. Complete strangers just getting pelted by rain and wind all for the sake of helping us help another stranger. The crazy thing to me is they weren’t even looking at us for the most part. It was almost eerie. They looked like statues just standing there for that split second I looked up. And then I never saw them again. I know they were there, but there were more important things at hand than to keep an eye on the “umbrella guys”. I don’t even know if anyone else saw them or even cared they were there. All I know is it was one of the simplest yet most profound things I’ve ever seen and it’s something I’ll never forget. “Always look for the helpers. You will always find someone helping.”