This November will mark 23 years since I started covering news in West Virginia. During my time I’ve been to countless scenes involving floods, fires, car wrecks, and other man made and natural disasters.
As one covers news you develop relationships with first responders. Those relationships are vital to cultivate information which is fast and accurate. It’s a necessary tool for doing your job. Occasionally, you develop more personal relationship and full blown friendship with those individuals. I’ve often wondered what causes one to want to volunteer to run into a burning building or go unpaid for the task of pulling a badly broken body out of the wreckage of a car. Truly, it takes more than I could endure.
Sadly, the nature of my job requires a certain level of desensitization. I have learned to steel myself against an emotional reaction when horrible tragedies occur. We reporters tend to be criticized for having no feelings, but this isn’t the case. My heart often aches for a family which has endured a loss, but telling their story and sharing their emotion is a key element of the job. Allowing my own emotions to trickle into a story too much degrades from the subject.
The strong resolve I have developed is lost when the victims are your loved ones. I recently rolled up on an accident scene in a remote part of Pocahontas County to a dreadful sight. My wife’s car was upside down along the highway. My wife and daughter were walking around the outside in a state of shock and my mother-in-law was trapped inside. It was so scary I didn’t know how to react. There was euphoria they were alive, but fear for just how much damage was done.
This area was in the middle of the Monongahela National Forest. Cell phones were useless. However, as often happens in West Virginia, there were plenty willing to help out. A passing car took off to alert the fire department. We heard the distant siren and I think every member of the Bartow-Frank-Durbin VFD was in church since it was a Sunday morning. My apologies to the pastor whose sermon was interrupted.
I didn’t know any of those fire fighters personally. However, they handled the scene with professionalism and dedication which was impressive.
They isolated my wife and daughter and treated them for their injuries. At the same time other firemen and paramedics helped free my mother-in-law from the wreckage. All three were quickly whisked away to distant medical facilities.
The whole scene is still surreal. When I think of it, I almost feel like I’m in a dream state. Thankfully, all three are on the mend and will recover.
I’m pretty sure I was so overcome with worry I didn’t thank the members of the BFD Volunteer Fire Department at the scene. It takes a special kind of person to dedicate themselves to a volunteer fire and rescue unit. I couldn’t do it. However, I’m grateful there are men and women who are willing to take those risks and put their own lives aside to insure the safety of ours. We often take those individuals for granted, until we need them. Many thanks BFD-VFD.