Boy's life or YouTube?

Today's picture is for the ladies.

At the bottom of this blog, I'm going to post a story. It's a great story, one you should read (it's going at the bottom and not at the top because I want you to read what I'm about to write, not what someone else wrote.) It's a story some network is going to steal and make an episode out of, it's a story that has it all: near tragedy, heroic actions and neighbors coming together to help one another out.

It's a story that sums up all that is good in America. Unfortunately, it also sums up all that is wrong in America today.

In short, dude is driving down his street. He sees car crash and goes up in flames. He parks his car, runs to the scene and starts kicking in the windshield since he could see people trapped inside. The car explodes about this time. Dude keeps going. His uncle happens to live on this street, he shows up and does what any reasonable person would do in this situation: video tapes the ordeal. Neighbors also show up, they help the first dude go at the windshield, using anything they can find to help. They manage to get a little hole and squeeze a baby out of the windshield. Meanwhile, the car is still on fire and it's only getting worse. Next they are able to get the mom out, but a four-year old is still trapped inside the vehicle and flames have already reached him.

Luckily for him, two off-duty firefighting-brothers and an off-duty police officer happen to show up. The two fire fighters do what only firefighters would do: go into the burning vehicle and pull out the child WITHOUT any protection gear on.

Everyone's expected to make a full recovery that was involved in the accident or the recovery of the vehicle's occupants. The off-duty rescue personal were rightfully honored for their heroic actions. At a press conference, the boy's doctor said the firefighters saved his patient's life and his dad thanked everyone in the community for helping save his family.

Neighbors helping each other. Firefighters crawling into burning vehicles without protection of any sort. Everyone lives, everyone's happy. It's a great story.

It's a story you can watch on YouTube thanks to Jerry Lepkowski , who videotaped the dramatic rescue.

Have we really gotten to the point where we tape or take pictures of everything? When someone looks out their window and see a vehicle on fire with a mother and two small children trapped in it is the first thing they think, "Hey! Let me grab my video camera and I'll be right there!"

Never mind thinking about grabbing something that could help break through glass or calling 911. Don't worry, 4-year-old boy caught in the back seat on fire, I have my camera! I'm getting all of this on tape! You're gonna be a YouTube star! Hey, would you mind looking in this direction? Thanks!

It's fortunate for everyone involved everyone made it out of the vehicle alive and a trio of off-duty rescue personal just happened to be close enough to give this story a happy ending. But what if they hadn't been nearby? Would the boy have died in the vehicle, burned alive with his screams forever captured on tape? How would have Jerry Lepkowski felt then, standing there holding a video camera getting every second of the boy's last breaths?

"Hey Mom and Dad, sorry about your son. But if it helps any, I have it all here on tape. It's all in focus too. If you want, I'm available to film his funeral next week too, but only if it's on Tuesday or Thursday, I'm doing my grandson's T-ball game on Wednesday."

I watched this video last week and thought it was funny, now I'm not too sure it's not far off from being true.

Story link.