Monday, October 19, 2009

Everyday Heros


I was reluctant to call 911, because I did not want to trouble the men and women who volunteer for our fire and ambulance department. But after the plug-in carbon monoxide alarm I had just bought at Lindell's started chirping (after the other one in my house was chirping and I could not interpret whether that meant the battery was dying, the alarm way dying, or I was on my way to dying). So within five minutes, the good men and women of the Falls Village Volunteer Fire and Ambulance Department were at my house, and they knew right away that my plug in alarm needed to have a battery in it too as a back up and that was why I heard chirping. (If only I had read the 20 page instruction manual before plugging it in.) Oy vey, as my grandmother used to say. I am so embarrassed to have wasted our volunteers' time. But I am comforted to know that my neighbors are ready to be my heros if one day I truly need them.

1 comment:

Geoff Brown said...

I'm not a firefighter, but I can tell you what one fireman, many years ago in New York City, told me under similar circumstances after he had just run up 11 flights of fire stairs wearing his bunker gear and his Scott air pack, and carrying a roll of hose: "We would much rather come instruct you about using a smoke alarm than come fight an apartment fire, and maybe get to carry you and your family out in bags. Call anytime. I mean it."