Letter: 'You’ve Truly Changed Our Lives Forever'

(Submitted by the Gruber family regarding .)

With Appreciation and Gratitude to Our Volunteer Firemen

Have you ever passed judgment on Volunteer Firemen?  Have you ever made a cynical comment or poked fun at them behind their back?  You know, “There’s a cat in the tree and every volunteer fireman in town shows up with their blue lights.”  Almost every single person that I’ve talked to and said, “I have a whole new level of respect for Volunteer Fireman and will never make negative comments about them again” has responded with, “Yea – I’ve done that too”

Don’t get me wrong, I’ve never passed up on emptying all the money in my wallet in a fundraising fireman’s boot or to the guys in the truck driving around house to house asking for donations.  The real issue that I have with myself is that I don’t think I truly appreciated them.

Based on my prior judgment, I didn’t deserve to be saved by them but they saved us anyway.  The amazing thing is that the words “because it’s their job” would go so well with that statement but it’s not true.  Those men and women don’t get paid to do it.  It’s not their “job”.  They are husbands, wives, dads, moms, boyfriends, girlfriends or someone’s son or daughter.     

So to every volunteer firefighter in Newtown (, , , , and ) who responded to our house fire on December 8th at 2:00 in the morning while most everyone else was sleeping, including us, THANK YOU!

Those two words don’t come close to how much we appreciate everything it is that you do.

Special Thanks to Our Three Heroes

Had it not been for the actions of two neighbors and Fire Chief Wayne Ciaccia, I would most likely not be alive today writing this thank you. 

To 17 year old Connor Hartgraves – Thank you for sleeping with a fan for noise and waking up when it and the power went off at 2:00 in the morning.  Thank you for calling 911 and not assuming that everything was alright or someone else “probably” called because it wasn’t and they didn’t.

To Steve Tramposch – Thank you for having a battery backup with audible alert when the power went out at 2:00 in the morning.  Thank you as well for calling 911 and not assuming that everything was alright because it wasn’t.

To Fire Chief Wayne Ciaccia – Thank you for not only coming out to secure the road and protect the people of Little Brook Lane at 2:00 in the morning but thank you for having the wherewithal to notice that not only was the downed wire burning but so was our garage door.  Thank you for risking your life to get into our house, notice the basement fire and save our lives.

I don’t think people fully understand the magnitude of how different things could have turned out had it not been for you three.  We are forever grateful to all of you.  You are all heros in our eyes and you’ve truly changed our lives forever.

With love and gratitude,

Mike, Tammy and Daniel Gruber (The Furry Grubers too - Huey, Sienna, Sheba, and Ollie)