After he used his snow plow to clear the way for an ambulance bearing a patient having a heart attack during the Feb. 21 snow storm in Columbia, many are calling Fulton resident Brandon Irwin a hero.
If you ask Irwin, he was just instinctively reacting the way he was taught when seeing someone in need of help.
"I never really gave it a second thought as to whether I should help or not I just did it. That's how I was raised," Irwin said. "Now I have something to tell my three boys so they can start to understand why you should help people."
Irwin, who works for Boone County Public Works, was on his way to clear his assigned priority route when he came upon the ambulance, which had slid sideways in the snow and was stuck in the roadway. He is being credited with saving the patient's life after helping the ambulance make it the last 2 1/2 miles to its destination at University Hospital.
When the ambulance driver approached Irwin for help, he said he wasn't sure what his department's policy was in such a situation, but he didn't bother to call and ask permission, he simply leapt into action.
"When I came around the ambulance to plow a path, I saw the victim's wife in the passenger seat, and the look in her eyes is what drove me to the hospital," Irwin said. "All I wanted to do was to make sure they had every opportunity to save that man's life, and I'm glad I was there to provide them that opportunity."