When Sarah Ray's father and grandparents were in a car accident on the way to her wedding reception, the off-duty Clarksville, Tenn., paramedic rushed to the scene in her wedding dress.
“My dad called my husband and said there had been an accident,” Ray said. “All he told him was there had been a wreck, and the car was totaled. We didn't know anything about injuries.”
Ray found her grandmother in an ambulance with injuries from the air bag and seat belt that were serious enough to send her to the hospital, but not life-threatening.
“One of the first things she said to me was that she was sorry she ruined my wedding day,” Ray said. But Ray assured her grandmother she had done no such thing.
As she walked back to the car in the drizzling rain, holding her wedding dress so it wouldn't touch the ground, with the ambulance and fire truck behind her, Ray's mother snapped a photograph.
The photo was posted to the Montgomery County government's Facebook page with the caption, “How dedicated are you to your job?” The caption briefly details the circumstances and concludes, “Thank you, Sarah, for loving what you do!”
The post has attracted more than 17,000 likes on Facebook, along with more than 6,400 shares and more than 500 comments. Ray called the response “overwhelming.”
“I'm very humbled by the mostly positive response from the public,” Ray said via e-mail. “I don't believe I am a hero, I wish that word wouldn't be used. All I want is to have a positive impact on how the EMS profession is viewed as a whole.”
