Hello?

I don’t think there’s a more helpless feeling than being at the wrong end of a phone line when someone you love is in danger. The first time it happened to me was about ten years ago when my wife was working in Tacoma (about an hour from home.) That day at about noon I answered a call from her cell phone only to hear a man say “Hello, is this Randy? Your wife asked me to call you. She’s just been hit by a car.”  As the ambulance was speeding toward her, and I was speeding toward the hospital she took the phone to try to talk, but instead passed out, dropping the phone in the street. The drive to town probably took forty minutes, but it felt like forever. Although badly banged up and left with a shoulder that still aches to this day, she's lucky she wasn’t more seriously injured.

The second time it happened was this morning when my youngest son called to ask how to fix an electric hot water heater. He lives in an apartment in Tacoma, not too far from where my wife was hit by the car. “Turn off the breaker, then take off the top panel and look for a red reset button” I told him. A couple minutes later he pressed the red button, and it clicked just like it should to reset. I waited on the phone as he went to turn the breaker back on. The next thing I heard was my son yelling “it’s on fire!” Then I heard a lot of commotion, but he didn’t answer as I tried to tell him to turn the breaker off and ask if the fire was inside the water heater panel, or if it was spreading. My first thought was to run to the truck like I did when I got the call about my wife, which in this case was stupid. Then I went to get the landline to call 911, but I kept asking if he was okay. Still there was no answer; just more commotion and his neighbor yelling “what’s happening” as he yelled back “there’s a fire.” Seriously, I’m getting too old for this kind of stress.

Finally he picked up the phone, probably twenty seconds later (but again it felt like forever) and told me the fire was out. He had run down to the end of the building, broken open the fire extinguisher case, and returned to put out the fire. I’m proud of the kid, but we agreed… no more electrical troubleshooting over the phone.

Follow up note: The new hot water heater will be installed on Monday, and they’re going to check out that suspect breaker also. The repairman assured my son that he did everything right, and there’s no way it should have been able to catch fire. Plus the apartment’s going to give him a free carpet cleaning. Apparently he emptied the extinguisher, and made a hell of a mess. Again I feel lucky, and it really makes me think about, and feel empathy for those people who have had to listen to real tragedies from the wrong end of a phone line.