Give a Blanket

When I was a student at Boston University, I drove an ambulance. I had solid first aid training, but I was not an EMT. For as long as I could remember, I had wanted to save a life. I had never been in a position to do it.

One winter, in the middle of a blizzard, my radio called me to a serious accident on Route 95. I raced to meet my colleagues, hoping this might be my turn. The fire chief knew I was not an EMT. He sent me to a car that had spun off the road onto the berm. Its damage was minor. Inside was an elderly couple, shaken and likely in shock.

It was bitterly cold. I took two blankets from the ambulance and wrapped them around the couple. They were not injured, but they needed warmth and a doctor. I reported to the chief, and they were taken to the emergency room in Waltham. Once again, I had not saved a life.

A year later, in my final semester, an older man knocked on my door. He asked whether I was the young man who had helped him and his wife in last year’s blizzard. I invited him in. His wife had passed away a few weeks earlier. Before she died, she asked him to find me and return the blankets. He had tracked me down through the fire chief. She wanted me to know how grateful she was.

He handed me the blankets, shook my hand and left.

I sat in that living room for a long time. I had spent years waiting for the heroic moment. Here was proof that a simple act, a warm blanket for someone cold and frightened, had stayed with her to the end of her life.

That lesson has shaped how I think about giving. Many people never give, never volunteer and never step forward, because they are waiting until they can do something large enough to matter. They are waiting to save a life. Meanwhile, someone on the side of the road is cold.

Don’t wait to save a life. Give a blanket.