Nostalgia II

Recently, fulfilling the saying that the world is a handkerchief, I reestablished contact with someone with whom I shared moments of youth, in an institution ignored today, but that at the time of its creation was the image of hope for many men and women, I refer to the Red Cross and also the Red Crescent, and remembered those days, the guards we performed, that uniform that did not represent us at all, but with which we walked proudly, because people let us pass to see us running, and it is something curious to reflect, in this time of recording with mobile phones any incident, with the imperative need to record with mobile phones any incident, with the imperative need for the imperative need to let us pass when we saw us running,

And it is something curious to reflect, in this time of recording with cell phones any incident, with the imperious need to climb into that cold and empty world rather than help that person in need, that morbid need to share the misfortune of others, I do not know, it is just as inexplicable to me, as that same need to publish a false and false pretended complete and total happiness.

You have to understand the situation, an accident on the road, a couple or more smoking cars, a crowd of people watching without daring to make any action and hear in the distance, a siren announcing a prompt response to the accident.

A usual braking, we were always in a hurry, we went down almost almost in motion, our gaze set on the smoke rising in the cars, shouts of «get out of the way», grunts to try to open the doors, words of «watch out for that arm», «hold his head tight», «give me room! We did not think that we were on top of an iron box full of gasoline, depositing the bodies on those rigid stretchers and taking them quickly to the nearest center, while a couple of us stayed in the accident area, waiting for the arrival of the police, or maybe they were already there and they were the ones who were waiting for us, looking at us with that look that was only dedicated to those who belonged to a different kind of race.

Because we were.

Together with some of them, we entered houses on the verge of burning in several forest fires, we pulled out on horseback the elderly in a residence full of smoke because of a mattress on fire, we spent a whole weekend, getting wet and almost without sleep and less eat, to be aware of the visit of a religious leader and what it entailed for many of those believers to be exposed. Belonging to a mountain unit, the one who relates these experiences today, along with the other members of the unit successfully completed a good number of searches for lost hikers, a not inconsiderable number of rescues on mountain walls, rescues motivated mainly by the lack of experience and deficient material of those who tried, we were different, full of the same fear or perhaps even more than anyone else, but we all felt that we made a difference.

Sad days, corners of the place where we met full of tears, because we knew what it was to see someone leave in a last breath, days of rage for being late to an accident and say on the radio…key eight… nomenclature for other services to come, days in which boredom was synonymous with tranquility, broken by the shout from the radio announcing this or that service.

Why am I telling you this little story?

Because you have to know that there was a time when drivers stopped to ask questions before a stopped car, because there was a day when someone was ill, and people gathered around him, not to record his face, but to try to help, that there were people who sacrificed one Sunday a month to help their fellows before an eventuality on the road or at home, people who formed links for life, a simple emblem, a card that proved that they belonged to that institution, the pride of having done something exceptional, to save a life, to save a life, to save a life, to save the lives of others. …exceptional, saving a life, giving a family their loved one after being lost for a few hours, arriving home and being asked how your watch had gone and you keeping silent for a few moments and saying «Well, it went well! when in fact you had skidded with the ambulance to get to the emergency unit early, and you knew that this promptness had made all the difference.

You have to know that there were such people, the most normal and wonderful of them all, people who gave themselves at a certain moment for another stranger, without asking, without questioning, just because they were from the Red Cross, because they wore the uniform, because they had done the first aid course, because they wanted to do it.

You have to know that there was another time.

*** Translated with http://www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version) ***