Wisconsin Firefighters Return to Shovel Snow at Home of Hospitalized Man

[Liberal_in_LA]

A crew of Wisconsin firefighters is receiving praise from around the country after a photo of them shoveling a snowy driveway has gone viral.



The four firefighters, all members of the Greenfield, Wisconsin, Fire Department, were photographed on Sunday removing snow off the driveway of a man they had just taken to the hospital.

The man, who was not identified, had been shoveling the snow outside his home himself after a nearly 24-hour snowstorm when he began to not feel well, Greenfield Fire Chief Jon Cohn told ABC News.

When firefighters arrived at the man’s house, they found him in a cardiac emergency and rushed him to the hospital.

“At some point at the hospital, somebody said, ‘We should go back and finish shoveling that driveway so the family has one less thing to worry about,’” Cohn said.

http://abcnews.go.com/US/wisconsin-firefighters-return-shovel-snow-home-hospitalized-man/story?id=28695867

[malaise]

1. Very nice

Every now and then human beings demonstrate that we're not all scumbags

[ND-Dem]

2. K&R

[postulater]

3. That is the Wisconsin Way. nt

[Jackpine Radical]

11. Yes, it is.

It was part of the ethos. The people who settled Wisconsin were mostly immigrants who often lived in little "colonies" with members of their own ethnic group at first, and it was a hardscrabble life. They depended on each other. My father and his brothers spoke often of the houseraising that his rural community held to replace their home after they burned out during their first winter. The same sort of tradition existed throughout the agricultural midwest. For example, each farmer in a given area might own one or two pieces of expensive field equipment, and each of his neighbors owned a different piece or two of equipment. At harvest time, the entire community would go from one farm to the next, working each farmer's field in turn and using the equipment communually.

When your roots lie in that kind of culture, some things just "come natural."

[think]

4. That's awesome :) /nt

[usaf-vet]

5. People who care ..... care!

It takes a special person to serve in emergency services. Caring for others is inherent in their makeup. It is not the pay check that draws them. It is the deep root concern for their fellow human beings. I don't think it is something you can be taught. It is in your DNA (IMO).

Thanks for serving gentleman. Thanks for caring.

Ex-USAF Medic.

[calimary]

10. Welcome to DU, usaf-vet!

Glad you're here! Stories like this one restore my faith in my fellow humans. And I must say it's been rather severely tested in the last few decades. Certainly so since the reagan era, where selfishness, greed, money-grubbing, and pennywise/pound-EXTREMELY-foolish attitudes toward "governing" were raised to the level of sacraments.

I agree with your observation - it DOES INDEED take a special person to serve in emergency services. I always feel fearful for our first responders here in L.A. Traffic and self-absorbed drivers who aren't paying attention to their surroundings (too busy on the phone or listening to their music - in their earbuds or otherwise distracted to notice there are sirens screaming up the street toward them and they need to pull over and clear the way). We have WAY too little compassion in this country, and the mean-ness I see echoed all over the extremist wrong wing of the political spectrum just disturbs me like nobody's business. WAY too much IGMFU - "I Got Mine, F-U" ruling the day out there.

Stories like this are refreshing and restorative. And some thoughtful DUer always seems to find one of them and post it here to perk up the rest of us! Sometimes it happens when you need it the most!

[Ed Suspicious]

6. I like firefighters. Cops could learn from them.

[snacker]

7. Here in Wisconsin...

sadly, they are known as "union thugs", just like teachers and all other public employees. However, this is a wonderfully, heartwarming story of real Wisconsinities.

[Botany]

8. Wisconsin has some really nice people ..... I hope somebody got the firemen some bear claws.

[Liberal_in_LA]

13. bear claws in california are different that the one pictured

[mythology]

14. Obviously they are thugs

I mean they have those shovels they are carrying, which they no doubt use to threaten people, you know when they aren't shoveling out driveways for hospitalized citizens. For all we know they menaced the poor guy into the cardiac arrest.

Please note, some or all of the above could be sarcasm.

[samsingh]

9. Very nice

[brer cat]

12. They are good people

who do the right thing without it being on their "job description."