Lights and Sirens

Am I the only one that gets goosebumps when emergency vehicles force me to pull over and wait until they pass?

Yesterday, I got into a mini-traffic jam due to an accident on the roadway going to a lunch date.  Bother!  When I got close to the crash site, I was humbled.  It was a nasty one, on a road with a 45 mph speed limit.  A car had hit the rear of a box van, and the car was totally destroyed.  If the car's driver survived, I'd be surprised.  Going past things like that kind of slows one down, ya know?

In my granddaughter's Catholic Phase of her development (an entirely different post), she would hear sirens and say, "Somebody's in trouble."  She would cross herself and say a little prayer for whatever or whomever the sirens were for.  I was so impressed by her innocent care for those she didn't even know.

Once upon a time, those lights and sirens were for me.  I got up on August 1, 2009, and didn't feel well.  Things weren't working right.  I finally told my daughter (who was living with me then) that I needed medical attention.  We weren't thinking properly, so instead of calling for an ambulance for indistinct symptoms, she drove me to the fire department, at my request.  They put me in an ambulance to take me to the hospital.  No big deal.  Nothing going on, really.  No lights and sirens along the way...until we got close to the hospital when my heart decided to act up.  The EMT asked for the driver to turn on lights and sirens "just because he didn't want to be stuck in traffic".  The real reason, of course, is that I was having the heart attack that my earlier symptoms had foretold, right there in the ambulance.  My poor daughter, who was right behind the ambulance, got confused, looking for the emergency vehicle that was sounding off.  It was right in front of her and contained her mother!

To this day, whenever I see lights and hear sirens, I do what the law tells me to do.  Whoever is "in trouble" deserves this.  I get the same feeling when I am in a funeral caravan, and drivers on the opposite side of the road pull over out of respect for the departed that they don't even know.

Bless those that respond to emergencies.  Bless those who need the help.  Bless those who need the rest of us to understand what got them to that place of respect.  May the lights and sirens never have to be for you!