A month ago my son Charlie broke his thigh bone while sledding.
He went over the edge of a short drop to a frozen stream and landed hard on one knee on the ice.
He also cracked the ice, and friends and onlookers who went to his aid couldn’t reach him. He was trapped in icy water with a broken leg.
An off-duty policeman (are they ever really off-duty?) called paramedics, who arrived in minutes with the right equipment and training to get my son safely out of the icy water and into an ambulance. They warmed him up and brought him to the hospital, and didn’t leave until they had spoken to the doctors and assured themselves, and Charlie, that he would be all right.
The doctors and nurses and X-ray technicians in the emergency room were efficient and professional, of course, but also gentle and considerate. The surgeons and the nurses and doctors who cared for him during his short stay in the hospital were equally professional and equally kind.
I know that what these people did was, for them, all part of a day’s work. But at a time when we are bombarded with stories of greed and selfishness, it is comforting to know that what is truly ordinary is competence and consideration.
I would like to celebrate the ordinary and expected heroism of these extraordinary and unassuming people, who just do their jobs the right way every day for strangers like you and me and Charlie. I want to thank them for doing their jobs with grace and compassion.
So here’s a sincere thank you to all the kind doctors and nurses, to the X-ray technician who made Charlie smile, to the off-duty cop who calmly did the right thing, and to the paramedics who stretched out on thin ice with a kind word and a strong hand for my son, who will live and walk and enjoy life because of what these people did, on an ordinary day in December.
