Excerpts from abc7chicago.com:
Elgin firefighters went above and beyond to lift the spirits of a patient at a suburban rehabilitation hospital.
The only way for patients to visit with family members at that the Avondale Estates facility is to do so through a window, which makes Mary Moore’s third-floor room a big hurdle. She has been suffering from serious respiratory illness and transferred there this week. She’s the matriarch of a large, tightly-knit family. Concerned relatives flew in from around the country to see her, except they weren’t really going to be able to see much looking up from the parking lot. When Elgin’s fire chief heard about it, he offered the solution; a ladder truck to bring them to the window.
The family kept the visit a secret, waiting to just appear in front of her window Thursday afternoon – and the reaction was worth it.
While her family was only here to visit Mary Moore, administrators said everybody in the facility got a boost at a time when many may need it the most.
“It’s not something we can do every day, take another ladder truck out of service,” Elgin Fire Chief Robb Cagann said. “But the circumstances around this particular situation gave us the opportunity to do it and we thought it warranted our ability to do that.”
