{"id":14365,"date":"2016-08-05T08:02:15","date_gmt":"2016-08-05T15:02:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spijue.wpengine.com\/news\/empire-editorial-when-help-is-needed-juneau-responds\/"},"modified":"2016-08-05T08:02:15","modified_gmt":"2016-08-05T15:02:15","slug":"empire-editorial-when-help-is-needed-juneau-responds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/opinion\/empire-editorial-when-help-is-needed-juneau-responds\/","title":{"rendered":"Empire Editorial: When help is needed, Juneau responds"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s easy these days to focus on all the things wrong with our city and state, but this week there was much good to celebrate.<\/p>\n

Juneauites have their differences \u2014 lots of them. Rarely do we agree on the direction of government, spending priorities, and so on. But none of that matters when tragedy strikes. If there\u2019s one thing the majority of residents do well and can agree on, it\u2019s taking care of each other.<\/p>\n

We were reminded of that this week \u2014 twice, in fact.<\/p>\n

Last week, Tommy Vrabec, Peter Fergin, George Crowder and members of Capital City Fire\/Rescue were honored for saving the life of a man, Stephen Hamilton, who went into cardiac arrest while at the Juneau Racquet Club in January. Two of the men began CPR on Hamilton, and Vrabec relied on EMT training from high school while using JRC\u2019s defibrillator to shock Hamilton back to life.<\/p>\n

[On tennis court, savings a life is no racket<\/a>]<\/p>\n

These individuals are nothing short of heroes. CCFR Chief Richard Etheridge said it best during the July 29 ceremony: \u201cYou took the training to know what to do, and you stepped in and did it. A lot of times, people will kind of step back and say, \u2018I don\u2019t want to be involved,\u2019 but you guys jumped right in.\u201d<\/p>\n

Two days after that ceremony, it was the Carriker family\u2019s chance to save the day when a Dolphin Jet Boat Tours vessel began sinking in Favorite Channel.<\/p>\n

The tour vessel Big Red had 18 people on board and was going down fast in frigid waters. Luckily, the Carriker\u2019s boat \u201cSea Ya\u201d wasn\u2019t far away and got most of the passengers on their boat before the Big Red went under completely.<\/p>\n

[Family’s fast actions save lives at sea<\/a>]<\/p>\n

An Allen Marine boat also came to the rescue, as did two unidentified people on a skiff who didn\u2019t hang around to receive thanks.<\/p>\n

In big ways and small, Juneauites always respond to a call for help. Whether its saving passengers and crew on a sinking vessel and performing CPR on a stranger, or helping local nonprofits in need or families fallen on hard times, the people of Juneau heed the call.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s acts like these that make Juneau a place we\u2019re proud to call home.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s easy these days to focus on all the things wrong with our city and state, but this week there was much good to celebrate. Juneauites have their differences \u2014 lots of them. Rarely do we agree on the direction of government, spending priorities, and so on. But none of that matters when tragedy strikes. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":8,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-14365","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-opinion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14365","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/107"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14365"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14365\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14365"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14365"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14365"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=14365"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}