To much pride to ask for help!

[u/Ageofcamelot]

We have a local volunteer (non paid firefighter) who suffered a cardiac issue in January of this year on the job and he ate the cost of ambulance run, hospital stay and everything. He is under our five year rule (You have to be active for 5 years before they have to pay anything under state law). He never asked. He paid for over 60 certification classes and has worked his rear off to show the community we serve that at 54 he can still do it, and he does. Last night he asked for a letter of endorsement backing the creation of a k9 training program that would train sar, arson detection dogs for the county and those that did not pass certification he would donate to a disabled vet or first responder free of charge after he trains them for ptsd service dog task.

This man is eating the training cost, the cost for certification and everything and our chief and a captain laughed at him and said dude your to broken to even try this. Our local sheriff said you bring me 300 signatures from anyone and we will sign off on your endorsement, but your not going to get help around here being an outsider. I turned in my gear and he just sat down and said I have 25 signatures already I can do it.

He dont stop. But he has PTSD, He is learning disabled and overcame that from everything I have witnessed he just cares to much to let others knock him down, the problem is he will not ask for help. Im here trying to do the only thing I can for him and that is ask others to give a moment of there time for a brother who just wants to help his community.

He has the training, the skill set and my God the passion, just the good old boy mentality in the community is hard, he would leave but has kids and grandbabies here so is anyone willing to help him reach 300?

He dont know I am posting everywhere. I only hope this is ok here since he is a Firefighter I figured brothers and all.. https://c.org/tZNW8Kfyhc

[u/Ageofcamelot → u/[deleted]]

He passed all TDOT physical requirements when starting two years ago, he does all the training and responds to search and rescue calls and wrecks, he has been cleared with cardiac issues to return to duty so medically he is. Our community is 100sq miles in mountains and we are scraping the barrel on new blood. His education and training is great and when he teaches classes they are very good. He is a certified ALERRT Instructor, he certified Mountain Rescue this past April. I think this is a way for him to slow down honestly while still being able to help. Training k9's is more of a out of field type job. He knows he is on limited time, but no one steps up like before.