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SULLIVAN: Fire rescue heroics trump Pokemon craze

In a world that has apparently gone nuts, a stunning act of heroism here at home helps restore the balance. That’s if anyone noticed? We should thank Capt.
Sullivan

In a world that has apparently gone nuts, a stunning act of heroism here at home helps restore the balance. That’s if anyone noticed?

We should thank Capt. Kit Little and his fellow firefighters for restoring our faith in humanity after a sequence of events that have left us all wondering if the world is about to end in a firestorm of lethal absurdity: terrorism in Nice, police officers down in Dallas and Baton Rouge, and always, Donald Trump at the helm of the ship of fools.

So an old-fashioned rescue of a woman and her dog at Monday’s fierce East Second Street apartment fire was very much welcomed, by me at least.

Capt. Little would probably say he was just doing his job, but when your job involves rescuing a woman trapped by a fierce conflagration while at the edge of a ladder and then going back to get her dog, that’s above and beyond the call of duty.

That’s if you ask me, someone whose biggest risk is a typographical error. And most of those are handled by spell-check.

I’m not sure what Capt. Little gets paid, but many pro athletes get paid more in a week than he gets in a year. You think I’m kidding? Loui Eriksson, the Canucks' newest recruit, makes six million bucks a year to patrol the left wing. If you do that math, that comes to $115,385 a week. If Capt. Little makes much more than that in 2016, I’ll be surprised.

Whatever he gets paid, it’s not enough. I’m sure you’ll agree as you watch the video of the rescue.

At first, firefighters tried to get to the woman through her suite, but the approach was so hot, they could feel the heat through their fire-retardant protective clothing. So they went back outside and rigged a ladder to the third floor, making sure they didn’t get caught on live wires overhead.

Precariously balanced on the fully extended ladder, Capt. Little went up to the woman and managed to pull her down to the second floor. Then, honouring his promise to the woman, he went back up and grabbed her little dog by the scruff of its neck and pulled it out of the fire. Lucky pooch.

Not everyone was so lucky. Later among the ruins, one person was discovered dead. But without the efforts of Capt. Little and his colleagues, it could have been much, much worse.

I apologize to Capt. Little for making a fuss, but we just don’t spend enough time acknowledging the everyday courage of firefighters and other first responders. There is a kind of a cult that started after 343 firefighters died instantly in the collapse of the twin towers during the 9/11 terrorist attacks. People honour the dead by wearing FDNY ball caps or displaying bumper stickers.

Fine. But let’s not forget that first responders face down mortal danger every day, called upon to do things that would make ordinary mortals cringe. I have enough trouble changing a light bulb from the top of a ladder, never mind lifting an entire human being out of the flames, and then going back for her dog.

It’s this kind of routine dedication that is increasingly missing from society, and I sometimes worry that it hasn’t been passed down to the next generation.

I say that because on the same day as Capt. Little and his colleagues were spending hours rescuing people from the fire on East Second, Pokemon Go was released in Canada and many able-bodied denizens of the next generation were running around the streets of North Vancouver chasing a cute little virtual mouse. Where the only thing burning was bandwidth and lots of it.

Perhaps that’s not fair. But perhaps it is. A recent poll reveals that more people under 30 recognize Pikachu the electric Pokemon mouse than Joe Biden, the U.S. vice-president. A lot more: 98 versus 61 per cent. OK, it’s an American poll, and Americans are notoriously crazy, but it’s a digital Japanese mouse versus the man who’s a heartbeat away from becoming the leader of the free world.

So how about this? Say we did a poll of people under 30 in North Vancouver and asked them to identify Pikachu, Loui Eriksson, Joe Biden or Kit Little, who do you think would come first?

I rest my case. And tip my hat to a few good men who still think it’s worth risking their lives for our safety.

Journalist and communications consultant Paul Sullivan has been a North Vancouver resident since the fall of the Berlin Wall and the rise of Madonna. p.sullivan@breakthroughpr.com

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