Fire

Last night I was on call for Red Cross, who I volunteer with, and we got a call to respond to a fire that had destroyed a whole row of townhouses. I've gone out lots of times before, but this was the biggest incident I've responded to.

Found out when we got there and were interviewing people that a family had gotten trapped on the upper floor of one of the townhouses. They heard screaming, and saw their neighbor hanging from the third-floor window with his back on fire. Eventually he fell. They heard children screaming too, but never saw them come out of the house.

And my job is to comfort these people, to help get them back on their feet. Give them some food, a place to sleep. But listening to a story like that, responding with "that's awful" and "I'm so sorry" seems so inadequate. I wish there was more I could do, that I could find the magic perfect words that would help.

Bad dreams last night.