Quincy, Massachusetts-
Forty-four year old Mike Bowes had heard this sort of call hundreds, if not thousands, of times before. He was good at his job and knew exactly what to do each and every time the phone rang. Mike was a 911 dispatcher in Quincy, Massachusetts, a suburb of Boston in which 90,000 people resided.
At the time of the incident, Mike was a seasoned veteran. He had heard just about every sort of call known to man, ten times over, and prided himself in always staying calm, and always knowing how to handle each and every situation. He would effectively notify police and/or fire and simultaneously talk the caller through what they needed do, whether it be perform CPR, get out of the house due to fire, or run and hide from a home intruder. Mike was always prepared and nothing really shook him.
That was until 10:45 one Monday evening. Mike sat at his desk and received a call he was very familiar with. The caller said, “My neighbor’s house just blew up!”
Just as he had been trained to do, and had practiced religiously, over his 11 year career as a dispatcher, Mike calmly asked, “What’s the address?”
The caller’s response both shocked and surprised Mike. What were the odds in a city of 90K people that he personally would receive the 911 call when his own home was on fire? Mike had lived in the home for 20 years and was immediately worried about his parents, who he knew were both in the house at the time. Within five minutes of the call police were escorting Mike to his burning home.
In the end, both parents and a third person escaped the fire unharmed. And with another twist of irony, one of the first firefighters on the scene was Tom Bowes, Mike’s cousin. Tom rushed into the house and was able to salvage some old albums with wedding and baby photos, but sadly everything else was destroyed. Obviously very upset, Mike handled his personal disaster with a lot of maturity by saying, “My parents are alive; my neighbors are alive, it’s an inconvenience, but we’ll get through it.”
The moral of the story: Irony aside, all that really matters are the people you love. Everything else is replaceable.
© 2010 StrangeRush.com
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