Saturday, June 14, 2008

Go get a fire extinguisher for your car... and have some common sense.

A long one.

Today we went to Jared's to have some of our jewelry cleaned and as we were pulling onto the little side street off of the main road to get in to the parking lot, we saw a conversion van on the side of the road. We looked closer and noticed that the van had just started to catch on fire as we passed them. Chad got out his phone and we called 911. We parked at Jared's and Chad backed in the van (in a parking spot out of the way) so he could keep an eye on everything that was going on. I let the people who were standing around the van know that we called 911 and that they were on their way, I asked if everyone was ok and if they needed anything and they said no, they were ok, thanks. In the meantime, one of the guys that was in the van grabbed a big 5 gallon water jug and tried to put the fire out. It didn't work. The fire started to spread fast. Another guy was pulling stuff out of the van (a lawn mower and other landscaping tools) and Chad yelled "Get the hell out of there!!". The guy didn't realize how fast the fire was spreading.

I went inside to drop off my jewelry but as I walked in the front door, everyone that was working in the store that wasn't already with a customer started hovering at the front windows and doors of the store. I heard one of the ladies that works there say "Yeah, they've been broken down for atleast an hour out there!!" One of the ladies that was at the maintenance/repair customer service desk where I needed to drop the jewelry off saw me walk up to the counter, made eye contact with me and then went to the window to watch. What the hell?! What kind of crappy customer service is that?!?! Seriously about a minute later, a manager walked by as he was looking out the window, and I asked him if I could get some help. The eye-contact girl came out, still gawking at the fire and didn't say anything. I told her because they were so busy watching the fire, I would be right back. I went to check on Chad to make sure that everything was ok and then I checked on the people who were in the van again to see if they wanted any water or anything. They said that they were ok. NO ONE that works inside that damn store went to check to see if they were ok. The only employee that went outside was one who needed to move her car!

Chad said that he saw the coolest thing while I was in finally getting the jewelry taken care of (after I went back into the store)... he said some random lady pulled over and gave one of the guys standing by the van a hug. How neat is that? There were also lots of other "Looky-Lou's"... like you'll see in the video that Chad took. The lady in the black outfit was the Jared's employee who was going to move her car.



I'm just annoyed that no one even talked to these people to make sure that they were ok besides me. Seriously, I was watching!

After I came back out from the store, we headed to WalMart and we picked up some fire extinguishers for our cars. Better safe than sorry.

This is the second car fire that I've seen, (the first was in Ohio) and about the 12th time I've called 911 since I've lived in Arizona.

4 comments:

Sally said...

Some people are just plain stupid. They want to see what's going on, but don't want to get involved. Pay it forward....

Dad and I were coming home from Columbus and came home on RT. 3. We crested a hill and at the bottom of the hill a pick up truck had over turned. We didn't know that until we got up to it, it was really dark out.I called 911, the man in the truck was still strapped in his seatbelt upside down. We were prepared to pull him out as the truck was smoking a little. We didn't know how badly he was hurt, so we kept talking to him etc. Two other cars stopped and ALL the rest tried to go around us. I can't tell you how angry that made me! The guy that lived down the road heard the crash and said that the man's truck flipped four times! As far as we know he's okay. Scary stuff, but we were glad we could help him and try to keep him calm. He was very confused when we were taking to him. He is one lucky man....

Anonymous said...

Same with the motorcycle accident I saw... I bet if my car and a semi in the other lane weren't holding up traffic everyone would have driven right by if they could. I got out to help called 911 and threw my cell to the semi driver so i could help everyone in the crash! i dont think the wife made it but i'm sure thankful I was there... good heads on our shoulders in this family... good thing we have some Ohioans that live in Arizona.

Anonymous said...

ps i was the only one out of at least 15ish cars that got out to help.

Rachel said...

Holy Smokes- literally! I am glad that everyone is okay. I can't believe how selfish most people are these days. Did you see the news story about the man in Connecticut that was hit by a car. He was laying in the middle of the street and NO ONE stopped (not even the guy who hit him). There were people walking by and cars just pulling around him. $ people called 911, but nobody got out to help. I just don't understand how people can act like that and live with themselves.