Since nine-eleven we have certainly given lots of thought to
our emergency first responders—firefighters and police officers—true heroes who
respond immediately to the scene when life is threatened. Every day these brave men and women put their
lives on the line to protect us from disasters, whether the result of criminal
actions or devastation brought about by natural disasters.
A while back I came across an article titled A Day In The Life Of A United States Coast
Guard Rescue Swimmer. It talked
about his training and related the events of his first dangerous sea rescue
during a raging storm.
It got me thinking about a Coast Guard rescue I saw covered
live on television many years ago.
Summer 1993 (that's right, a little over twenty years ago)—my
first Romance Writers of America national conference. Flood waters inundated the Midwest. The Mississippi River was way out of its
banks. That year's RWA conference was
being held in St. Louis, Missouri. Prior
to the conference, there had been lots of speculation about whether the
conference would be cancelled or its location changed due to the flooding. Even though the Mississippi River flood
waters reached almost to the base of the St. Louis Arch, the conference hotel on
the other side of the freeway from the Arch was high and dry as was the
airport, so the conference went as scheduled.
There were some interesting moments of weather during the
conference. Late one afternoon during a
thunderstorm, there was a lightning strike on the sidewalk very close to the
hotel…close enough that the noise sounded like a large explosion and you could
see the resulting scorch marks and damage on the sidewalk. Every day television carried live coverage of
buildings being swept away, people trying to save whatever personal belongings
they could, animals being rescued, etc.
On Sunday morning following the conference, I had television
on in my room while I was packing before meeting a friend for lunch then going
to the airport to catch my flight back to Los Angeles. A local helicopter news crew caught a
spectacular rescue for live television broadcast. The images were riveting as I watched them happening live. A white wood frame two story
farmhouse totally surrounded by swift flowing water. No land in sight, only the tops of
trees. A man on the roof frantically waving
both arms in the air to attract the attention of anyone who could help him.
Then, as if on cue, the Coast Guard rescue helicopter crew
arrived on the scene. They lowered a
line and pulled the man from the roof of his house. As he dangled in midair, before
they could even get him inside the helicopter, the entire house collapsed and
was washed away leaving nothing visible other than debris floating on the
water.
Two hours later this same rescue crew appeared in the lobby
of our conference hotel. With the
helipad on the roof, the hotel had become their temporary staging area for the
next twenty-four hours. These four young
men were surrounded by women all wanting to get hero material for their next
romance novel—and understandably so.
They were true heroes in every sense of the word.
That same weekend a major league baseball team was in town
to play the St. Louis team and were staying at the same hotel as the RWA
conference. Professional jocks in a
hotel with 2,000 women—a match made in heaven?
Definitely not!
From my personal observations, several of the baseball
players (certainly not all of them) were rude and arrogant, making uncalled for
snide comments when they were ignored by the women…in the coffee shop, at the
elevators while waiting for one of the cars to make it to the ground floor
after stopping on every floor (anyone who has ever attended a conference with 2,000
people knows what a hassle the entire waiting-for-an-elevator
thing can be), in the lobby bar and in the lobby in general.
Then the Coast Guard rescue crew arrived. The baseball players were almost trampled in
the stampede to get to the obviously embarrassed Coast Guard crew who were soon
surrounded in a corner of the lobby.
Blatantly apparent that the true heroes of the day were the ones in
demand rather than those inflated egos whose noses were bent out of shape.
Just an interesting observation that came to mind while
reading the article about the Coast Guard rescue swimmer.
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