I’ve spent a significant part of this past weekend with emergency first responders. On Saturday, I participated in a community-wide emergency drill which simulated a military airplane carrying 40 people and some dangerous cargo which happened to crash in the backyard of the East Glenville Fire Department. For several hours, volunteer fire fighters from at least four departments coordinated efforts for rescue and recovery with each other, local ambulance companies and the military. About half the “injured” (played by more volunteers from the Civil Air Patrol, the Boy Scouts, and the military) were carried to local hospitals.
As a chaplain, I can’t actually “simulate” praying with the injured or counseling the medic who has to amputate a leg in the field. Instead, I met as many people as I could, shaking hands and thanking them for participating the exercise and for their work in their fields. One fire fighter raised his arms to the beautiful sunny morning and said, “I could be home finishing my deck!” Each of us in that drill chose to be a part of the machinery in our society that prepares and responds to disasters and emergencies in our community.
On Sunday, we held a memorial service for Joe Longobardo, a member of our unit and state trooper killed last week during a hunt for an escaped convict. Later in the afternoon, I waited with hundreds of other people to pay condolences to his family and friends and respect to Joe’s memory at his casket. Troopers and police and fire departments and Marines and Air Guardsmen uniforms seemed as prevalent as civilian clothes. I watched as troopers tried to balance their job with the overwhelming emotion of the event. Several gathered around a slideshow flipping pictures of Joe as a child, on duty in the desert, holding his year-old son and dancing with his wife. When pictures of strength contests or around a bar were displayed, those in uniform would laugh and nudge each other. When pictures from barracks or on patrol were displayed, those in uniform would nod their heads in memory. But when pictures of Joe’s young son and wife came on the screen, the reactions of those wearing uniforms was completely different. Some tensed up, some showed open grief and pain, some looked away. These are human beings, these are fathers and brothers and mothers.
After my first year of college, I took an EMT course in Los Angeles. Part of the on-the-job training I spent with an ambulance company responding to calls. I remember a pretty beat up bicyclist who had need ambulance transportation to a hospital after a fall; I remember the screaming of someone on an LSD trip that needed to be restrained; I remember weaving through traffic when the sirens suddenly stopped and we became just another car on the road because the person we were going to help had been declared dead on the scene and the crew I was with was not needed. Because of that one day I spent in an ambulance, every time I hear sirens, I stop and offer a prayer for the safety and wisdom of the emergency responders and the health of whoever is the focus of their call. I’ve taught this to Charis who now pipes up with every siren she hears, “There go the helpers!”
It’s September 11… I’m going to Joe’s funeral today… There are thousands of our neighbors who choose to live as helpers among us. I am grateful for what they are willing to do. May their strength give us strength.
As a chaplain, I can’t actually “simulate” praying with the injured or counseling the medic who has to amputate a leg in the field. Instead, I met as many people as I could, shaking hands and thanking them for participating the exercise and for their work in their fields. One fire fighter raised his arms to the beautiful sunny morning and said, “I could be home finishing my deck!” Each of us in that drill chose to be a part of the machinery in our society that prepares and responds to disasters and emergencies in our community.
On Sunday, we held a memorial service for Joe Longobardo, a member of our unit and state trooper killed last week during a hunt for an escaped convict. Later in the afternoon, I waited with hundreds of other people to pay condolences to his family and friends and respect to Joe’s memory at his casket. Troopers and police and fire departments and Marines and Air Guardsmen uniforms seemed as prevalent as civilian clothes. I watched as troopers tried to balance their job with the overwhelming emotion of the event. Several gathered around a slideshow flipping pictures of Joe as a child, on duty in the desert, holding his year-old son and dancing with his wife. When pictures of strength contests or around a bar were displayed, those in uniform would laugh and nudge each other. When pictures from barracks or on patrol were displayed, those in uniform would nod their heads in memory. But when pictures of Joe’s young son and wife came on the screen, the reactions of those wearing uniforms was completely different. Some tensed up, some showed open grief and pain, some looked away. These are human beings, these are fathers and brothers and mothers.
After my first year of college, I took an EMT course in Los Angeles. Part of the on-the-job training I spent with an ambulance company responding to calls. I remember a pretty beat up bicyclist who had need ambulance transportation to a hospital after a fall; I remember the screaming of someone on an LSD trip that needed to be restrained; I remember weaving through traffic when the sirens suddenly stopped and we became just another car on the road because the person we were going to help had been declared dead on the scene and the crew I was with was not needed. Because of that one day I spent in an ambulance, every time I hear sirens, I stop and offer a prayer for the safety and wisdom of the emergency responders and the health of whoever is the focus of their call. I’ve taught this to Charis who now pipes up with every siren she hears, “There go the helpers!”
It’s September 11… I’m going to Joe’s funeral today… There are thousands of our neighbors who choose to live as helpers among us. I am grateful for what they are willing to do. May their strength give us strength.
posted by Jake at 6:37 AM
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