Firefighters’ Act Of Kindness Goes Viral, Moves A Mourning Wife To Tears

Some firefighters’ act of kindness has taken the Internet by storm and moved one woman in mourning to tears.

John McCormick was a 65-year-old man with a history of heart problems. One day recently, he was mowing his yard when he suffered a heart attack.

McCormick brought himself into the house and collapsed. The firefighters and EMTs of Station 4 in Baytown, Texas, responded as they would to any 911 call, rushing the man to the hospital in hopes of saving his life.

Unfortunately, McCormick, who had a quadruple bypass more than a decade ago along with a host of other health issues, died two days later.

But it’s what happened between the heart attack and his death that has gotten people talking.

Engine 4, Medic 4, and Medic 2 — the first responders — first delivered a still breathing McCormick to the hospital. They then returned to his house, knowing what the family was going through, and finished mowing his yard.

What makes these firefighters and EMTs kindness so remarkable, especially this day and age, is that they did this with no expectation of notoriety.

While they did leave wife Patsy a message

It wasn’t until a neighbor of John McCormick saw what they were doing that the story spread from Baytown to the entire web. The neighbor, moved by the display, took out a phone and snapped pictures of Station 4 doing yard work.

Those pictures made the City of Baytown Facebook page and spread across the world. In fact, John McCormick’s wife Patsy said she’s gotten calls from as far away as New Zealand expressing their sympathy.

In comments to KHOU, Patsy McCormick said, “I just couldn’t believe it. I couldn’t believe they took the time to do that.”

Added son-in-law Dan Blackford: “It just speaks to their character…. They say honor is doing the right thing when nobody’s looking. That’s a fact…. They were very honorable.”

“It just showed me that there’s still compassion,” said daughter Jeana Blackford. “That people still do random acts of kindness every day for people that they don’t know.”

For the firefighters and EMTs part, they’ve kept a relatively low profile over the whole thing.

Firefighter Blake Steffenauer, however, did shed light on their reasoning: “They already got stuff they’ve got going on that’s more important. Yard work shouldn’t be something they’d have to finish up. So we were happy to come back and take care of that.”

What do you think about the firefighters’ act of kindness, readers?