Forget LeBron James; Real Clevelanders Stick Together
In the past few weeks, Cleveland's gotten a bad rap as the city that can't hang onto its homegrown hero. We're the city that people love to hate. The city with a curse. The city that holds a grudge. The city that can't win a sports championship. Outside of Cleveland, we're seen a losers. Thanks again, LeBron James; thanks for nothing.
But to those who live here, have lived here, or move here: Cleveland is and will always be home. We are bonded by our mutual misery, our tenacity and our internal need to help others. In truth, Cleveland is a great city because we look out for each other.
With this in mind, it was no surprise to me when I stumbled onto this story about a tragic traffic accident in our fair city yesterday. A truck driver lost control of his vehicle, hit an embankment and then a pole. Almost immediately, witnesses and passersby stopped to help the man, even when the truck burst into flames.
Keith Greenwald was on the scene and said this about risking his life to try and save driver Scott Wetmore: "Nobody was backing off, everybody just jumped right in there, flames or not. I ran out in the middle of traffic to stop a truck to get fire extinguishers out of the truck."
Those who gathered tried hard to put the flames out before they spread to the cab, where Wetmore was trapped and injured.
Greenwald stated: "He yelled to me 'please don't let me die in here' and he said it a couple of times. And I told him, 'I'm not gonna let you die in here...' Every time we'd put the fire out, another fire started."
Those on the scene continued to help until the rescue vehicles arrived, and ultimately, although Scott Wetmore died of his injuries, he didn't die alone. Greenwald says he will remember how so many people rallied to help a stranger. "A lot of people, used to be they didn't want to get involved; today everybody was getting involved."
That's just how we roll here in Cleveland. We may not win championships, we may have the world's worst weather, and we might seem like a joke, but the one thing we have is each other's back. Cleveland, you just keep making me proud!
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