Ted Barris

It was the day before New Year’s Day, four years ago. I had simply gone to exchange a gift at an electronics store in Oshawa. As I drove home that midday I remember listening to former Detroit Red Wings star Steve Yzerman announcing names of Team Canada hockey players for the 2010 Winter Olympics.

That’s when I was T-boned by a truck coming through an intersection. I remember my world spinning until I hit something else and came to an abrupt stop facing the opposite direction in the intersection. Next thing I knew, not an official, just a guy with a cell phone in his hand came to what was left of my driver’s side window.

“Are you OK?” he asked.

I nodded and before I could say anything at all, he was talking to an emergency services dispatcher locating the crash and requesting assistance.

That was Dec. 30, 2009, when I survived that car crash. At the time, I credited the sturdiness of my Toyota Corolla for my coming through the impact relatively unscathed. But I soon acknowledged – indeed in this column (Jan. 7, 2010) – that it was the kindness of that stranger and the proficiency of the paramedics and firefighters who arrived on the scene minutes later that saved the day. Not only because it’s the anniversary of that mishap, but also because of events in Ontario this past week, I’ve been thinking about our reliance on first responders.

I can only imagine what life’s been like in areas of Ontario, in particular in Toronto, without hydro since the ice storm brought down tree limbs on power lines a week ago Saturday. But I can also imagine the relief over 300,000 Torontonians and thousands more along the power grid across Ontario have felt with the arrival of crews working around the clock to get citizens back into light and heat.

On Monday, I received an email from a broadcasting friend in Scarborough. He’d been without power for a week. All he said was, “Just returned to hydro and heat. Hurray!” But he didn’t really acknowledge the crew that was probably frozen outside his door making that happen.

OK, it’s their jobs, but for some odd reason, we spend more time fussing over professional athletes’ and show-business celebrities’ shortcomings and foibles than we do acknowledging the gift of public service exhibited every day by firefighters, paramedics, electrical crews and even public works snow removal and water-main repair crews. Inexplicably, because they are doing their jobs – and doing them expertly – we tend to feel they owe it to us, that we’re entitled to their service and therefore we needn’t applaud them.

I disagree with that overblown sense of entitlement. I think of the heroism of those anonymous New York City firefighters and police, who raced into the burning World Trade Center buildings while thousands raced out, on 9/11. I think of the unnamed professionals with Médecins Sans Frontières giving their expertise and risking all to assist those fleeing drought in Africa or civil war in the Middle East.

I think of those who came to the aid of the injured in the Boston Marathon bombing last year. And I think of the anonymous case workers, who’ve literally soldiered on trying to assist Afghanistan veterans in need of support on their return… only to be told their numbers are being cut and their offices closed to balance the federal government’s budget.

As I learned late in his life, my own father served as a first responder. Some will remember in a recent book, I recounted my dad’s role as a medical sergeant in Patton’s army during the Second World War. In combat operations during the Battle of the Bulge, he learned some members of his medical team had triggered booby traps and had become cut off. He responded the only way he knew.

He took it upon himself to enter the mined area and retrieved the living and the dead. The action was later acknowledged with a military citation. I’ve often wondered who was his first responder when he most needed treatment after that horrific experience.

I think it’s appropriate at the first of a new year, that we take a few moments to give credit where it’s seldom given… to first responders in our lives. (Interestingly, my wife and I both remarked at the way the mayor of Calgary, Naheed Nenshi referred to relief workers in the wake of the Bow River flood last summer; he called Calgary first responders, his “colleagues;” in contrast, Toronto Mayor Rob Ford, throughout the ice storm referred to the hydro crews as “the workers.”)

My guess is that the person in an emergency, catching a first glimpse of a rescuer, a medical provider or a frozen hydro crew member, would find the kindest words in the vocabulary – maybe even “saviour” – in gratitude.

To responder and those in need alike… a Happy New Year.