Monday, April 25, 2011

Rural Volunteer First Responders

Saturday night while driving home after taking our kids to a movie in a nearby town we saw a motorcycle stopped in the middle of the road and what we first thought was a road kill deer on the side of the road. When we got closer the motorcycle was laying on it's side and what I thought was a dead deer was the rider laying on the edge of the road. He had hit a deer and laid his Harley down.

I walked up to him quickly with my phone in my hand, not knowing what to expect. He was alert and I asked if he had called 911 yet and he told me they had been contacted. With it being a calm night and close to town I heard the sirens for the volunteer fire department going off, I reassured him that help would be there shortly and the best thing for him to do was to just lay there.

The firemen pulled up and jumped out and started evaluating him before the ambulance was there. All the firemen are men are from the community that have other jobs, one of them is the county sheriff, a couple are mechanics, and I didn't know the others. These men give their time to help ensure the safety of our rural communities, they might get some compensation when they're on a call or at training, but not enough for the time gone from their jobs or family or the danger they put themselves in.

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