Heights Of Hope

"I would be terrified to climb over the side of a twenty-eight story building, suspended by a rope," I said as my family and I were watching the dramatic rescue of the two workers who were dangling on the side of a tall building in Yonkers.
"Oh, he looks like a strong well built firefighter, look at the way he is protecting the guy he is about to rescue, engulfing him with his arms." My husband did not have enough words for admiration for firefighter Mike Giroux . We did not even know the name of the brave, selfless hero who does not even want to be called a hero. When I called my family to the kitchen table for dinner on Friday evening they said no, because they wanted to watch the tv. I turned off the stove and came in the living room to see what was going on. I watched and saw that these two workers were hanging on the side of this tall building (a 28 story Senior center in Yonkers.) The scaffolding had collapsed and there was a high wire rescue going on. We were speechless as we watched a brave firefighter holding one of the workers and a rope at the same time. Little by little he started coming down with the worker and finally we could take a deep breath and could see both of them safe. It turned out that the workers were hanging so high that the ladder of the fire engine could not go that high. So Mr. Mike Giroux went to the top of the building and started rapeling down to the level of the dangling workers and build their confidence up and helped them come down. The other firefighter from the department  were standing and talking to the workers through the window to give them hope and confidence. The hard part they said was translating their messages as the workers did not know English language. Once the first worker was saved we had hopes for the second one as he was at least standing on the broken scaffolding unlike the first one who was simply holding on for his life. Then Mr. Mike Giroux saved him too. Mr. Mike Giroux may be a humble human being, but in our eyes (and the eyes of hundreds of New Yorkers) he is a hero.