Did you ever rescue a neighbor or a stranger?

My daughter said last night, “My Daddy saved someone’s life today!” Ok. She exaggerated a lot. I think she was teasing me. My neighbor had asked me to help carry some gas tanks around back for his grill because his back was killing him. I told him I needed to put my bike away, but as soon as I got in the house, I heard this awful scream, so I just dropped the bike and went tearing out of the house, which is what my daughter saw. I tend to react strongly when people scream, especially strong men.

My neighbor, God knows why, had decided to try to lift the tanks himself. I think he’s at that age where he can not accept that he is getting older and he better be careful, especially when he has—whatever the hell he has. Some kind of horrible sciatica that makes him scream like a baby when the pain hits.

I didn’t really know what to do. He should be sitting down or lying down or something, but he insists on walking around back with me and my wife, who has come out as well. He’s walking bow-legged, like an ancient cowboy. Like his pants are falling off and he can’t keep them up because he doesn’t have a belt.

So it was a lot of noise, but not really that serious. Sturm und drang. Smoke, but no fire.

Have you ever done the real thing? A real emergency? What did you do? What kinds of thoughts ran through your head as it was happening?