Nose for News by Sarah Stultz

 

I watched and read closely as the horrific fire last week spread through the town of Paradise, California.

The sister of two people I grew up with in Virginia lived in Paradise and witnessed first-hand the images that have been shown online and social media as they attempted to get to safety. Though they lost all of their possessions and their livelihood to the fire, she, her husband and their three children were grateful to have survived. Others, unfortunately, did not.

I saw their story shared on Facebook multiple times over the weekend and again through another website.

The situation played out very quickly.

Shortly after the wife, Sara, dropped off their youngest at school, they were notified that school was canceled because of fire evacuations. Around the same time, an evacuation announcement came over the speakers in the hospital where the husband, Ross, worked as an obstetrician-gynecologist.

Sara went back to pick up her son, and she and her three children and a friend’s child were able to get on the road right before traffic hit with their dog, two turtles and a few belongings. Ross and others frantically evacuated the hospital — newborn babies, women who had just delivered children and others — and eventually he got on the road as well.

Unfortunately, by the time he left, fire was on both sides, and he was stuck in gridlock traffic. 

Items in truck beds were spontaneously combusting, and tires were melting, forcing people to drive out on rims. Ross’s truck was 110 degrees inside, and his window was so hot it burned a firefighter who touched the glass.

His brother-in-law commented on Facebook that Ross’s last comments before his phone line died with his wife were that “the bumper is melting in front of me.”

It was at least five hours before the couple was ultimately reconnected. Ross and others were ultimately able to get to safety as firefighters cleared a path with bulldozers.

After the whirlwind of a day, the family was without a home, and the hospital was damaged. Though they are not sure what their future holds, they are grateful they still had each other.

According to the Associated Press, at least 29 have been confirmed dead so far from the wildfire, and nearly 230 people are still unaccounted for.

This horrible tragedy and the example this couple set reminds me of the importance of counting our blessings, even when we feel like all is lost — either literally or figuratively — around us.

We all experience tragedy — whether lost jobs, fires, deaths of loved ones, physical illness or others — but somehow beneath it all, there is always hope around us.

As we move into the holiday season, I hope we can be aware of all we have to be thankful for and to try, as we are able, to be a blessing to someone else in our community who might be enduring a difficult experience in life. 

 

Sarah Stultz is the managing editor of the Tribune. Her column appears every Tuesday.