Houston Message
Incident #: Date of Incident: 06/02/2013 Issuing Officer: AC Schaeffer
Narrative:
I have been struggling for the past several days on how to actually package a message to the Spokane Community from our organization in response to the Houston Texas Tragedy. The emergency response community has simply been overwhelmed with so many headlines reporting grim news from the Fairchild KC-135 Crash, Oklahoma Tornados, Tacoma Firefighter Albert Nejmeh‘s untimely death, WSP Trooper Sean O'Connell tragic accident and the aforementioned tragedy in Houston claiming the lives of four HFD Firefighters.
We have been inundated with daily news events of brothers and sisters lost, which overshadow the routine tragedy that we deal with in the course of our daily duty. The death of any public safety servant that dies "in the line of duty" represents a dedicated professional who sacrificed his or her life that others may live. Most of us half-heartedly acknowledge the event while searching for more significant information relating to our personal lives; like Facebook, paperwork, eBay or the weather. This newsworthy happening is, for most in the community, just words on a page. Lives are not normally changed by those tragedies, with the exception of a select few—namely the biological and work family.
In the fire service, family is much more than just lineage and charts. Our family expands generations, literally hundreds of years, and knows no geographical boundaries. Firefighters in South Africa, Great Britain, Japan and all locations throughout the world are connected by a brotherhood that exists from sharing the same mission and values—protecting life. In the case of Houston Fire Department, life, as they knew it, will never be the same again. The emotions of their firefighters will be filled with grief and their seemingly normal lives will spiral into sorrow—but they are not alone. The larger Fire Service family will be in the background, supporting the members of the HFD at every turn, every challenge and at every available opportunity.
Our mourning for Houston, WSP, TFD and our Fairchild family is evident in our faces, our writing and our conversations every day—and healing is not easy. Most importantly, however, we will heal by honoring the heroes lost by committing ourselves to learning from the tragedies so that we can institute measures and avoid a similar tragedy from ever occurring again.
I want to say thank you to those that have inquired on the SFD and our people—we cannot thank the community enough for your support and thoughts.
Cause:
N/A
Damage:
N/A
End Of Release For more information on this release please call (509) 625-7002
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