The Firefighter’s Warning
When I arrive at the scene, the old frame house on Chicago’s South Side is burning furiously. Smoke and embers dance crazily in the windy winter night. I give the order to unroll the hoses and then dash madly inside. I pull out three people and administer CPR to two of them before the ambulance arrives, rubber screeching on asphalt. When the blaze is finally under control, someone from the department comes up to me.
“You did a great job, Captain Cushing,” he says, “but two of those three people you pulled out didn’t make it.”
“No!” I cry. “They’re all alive!”
“I’m sorry, Cushing.”
Suddenly I awoke in a drenching sweat, my heart racing. My wife, Rosemary, was awake too, staring at
