I can’t remember the last day I was at NC State and didn’t hear a siren. Or sirens, plural, because more often than not, there’s more than one. 

As a resident in Wolf Village, my apartment is on the outskirts of campus. Being so close to the street, I hear a lot more traffic than I’m used to, compared to my centrally located Tri-Tower dorm (shout out to Metcalf) or my rural town back home. I am consistently shocked. In periods of a few hours or so, I hear two, three, up to four or five sirens throughout my studying in the meeting rooms with windows that overlook Gorman Street. 

If not while at my dorm, I’ll hear it walking through campus, sitting in class, going to the gym, wherever. No matter when it is or where I am, my reaction is always the same. I catch my breath, my stomach churns and my heart drops.

Let’s face it, most ambulances aren’t speeding through the streets because of sunshine and rainbows. You hope that everything will be OK and then go on with the rest of your day. What else are you to do? Sometimes I say a prayer, but what happens next isn’t really up to me. 

There are countless people who do take charge and who are involved in every serious situation. There’s a firefighter or a police officer or an EMT worker who drops everything in their lives to save someone else’s. In the city and on campus, people dedicate their lives to rescuing people from the most dangerous incidents, such as fires and deaths, to the smaller, while still significant, ordinary events, such as patrolling the areas. 

One night last semester, I needed to walk back to my dorm a mile or two or away in the dark at midnight. NC State is a much safer place than plenty other parts of the country, but I still didn’t feel all that comfortable to be alone at a time so late. I called the non-emergency campus safety line and within five minutes, a staff worker pulled up and drove me back to my apartment. These workers are always on the job, even when everyone else should be asleep. 

Safety and security don’t receive enough gratitude from all the people they help. They take on extra responsibilities just so we can all be a little less stressed. A person willing to help has taken the responsibility to save a life, to heal a wound, to make a difference for every phone call or blue light emergency. People don’t think about that enough. Just knowing that someone can come help you when you need it most is reassuring every second of the day. 

So the next time you hear a siren, take a minute to recognize that there are so many helpful people whose job it is to protect others. Maybe it’s a horrible accident; maybe it was a foolish mistake. But a firefighter doesn’t ask if there was a gas leak or if you left the stove on carelessly, and the EMT doesn’t ask if your brakes gave out or if you fell asleep at the wheel after pulling an unnecessary all-nighter. No matter the reason, they are there to help. 

Thank you to all the selfless rescuers. After all, for every siren, there’s a hero. And for every time there isn’t a siren, you can bet that there’s a hero who helped prevent it.