http://www.cbsnews.com/8618-500251_162-5355451.html?assetTypeId=41&messageId=8458042&tag=contentMain;contentBody
The standing rule is to give heroic acts of kindness their five minutes of fame (if it's a ratings or viewer draw) then leave them to suffer the health and financial consequences of their actions.
I entered a burning house three times to save a three year old boy and his foster mother while local police and neighbors stood back and watched. The mother's home-owner insurance policy wouldn't even cover the ambulance ride, much less the three thousand dollar ER visit.
I was already disabled and unemployed, and the only way I could keep my family from having to pay the resulting bills was to sigh a waiver releasing the insurance company from long term liability.
The insurance then payed for the ambulance and ER, but my family has to pay about one hundred dollars a month for the two inhalers I use daily, the rescue inhaler I have to use often, PLUS the ongoing medical bills for opportunistic infections I get often now.
I should also say that I was a firefighter/1stResponder since 1999, but had left the Scott County VFD to move here about three months prior to the fire next door.
I burned my lungs (in the line of duty) twice before; once in a house fire, and once (with chlorine powder) during a hazmat incident. Both incidents reduced my lung capacity, but neither cases were bad enough to require ongoing medications.
syndicNation
