It’s hard to imagine that on a weekend morning all three of our teenagers were up and out of bed before 7am.

Dear daughter was being picked up between 7 and 8am to go camping with friends so it’s not surprising that she was up and getting ready to go. Anticipation of a day at the beach, followed by marshmallows over the campfire (just happens to be one of her favorite things to do) and most likely staying up all night chatting to girlfriends, was enough draw to get her wheels in motion.

For a change, our two boys decided to join my husband and I at our regular Friday morning breakfast at (you guessed it) Ric’s Country Kitchen. Our kids do not really like your traditional breakfast items. Particularly anything to do with eggs. However, youngest son was in the mood for some pancakes and oldest son can’t get enough of the breakfast burrito that Ric’s serves up. We go to breakfast early though, usually leaving the house by 7 or 7:30am so if they wanted to join us the deal was they had to be up and ready to go. Which they were.

With our stomachs full we set out on the rest of our ‘Friday morning routine’ which is to go for a drive around the city. If you are not already aware, you will come to learn from me that the most frustrating part of living in Doha is the driving. But Friday, typically the ‘day of rest’ here, the streets are at their quietest so it’s nice to venture out to see the sights or in our case having lived here almost 11 years now, see what’s new. It was just reported in the news today that Qatar’s GDP is expected to grow by 18.5% in 2010 so be assured there is always something new to see around the country!

We’d only driven a short while along the corniche and were in the West Bay area when we noticed an ambulance, a police car and a crowd gathered at a worksite. I said to my husband there appeared to be an accident involving numerous victims. As there was only one ambulance on site, hubby figured they could maybe use some help, so proceeded to back up the vehicle, park and go to see if he could lend a hand. Watching from the opposite side of the street, I noticed medic gloves go on his hands so knew we would be waiting for at least a short while.

It turned out that a sheet of glass fell and 3 men were injured and taken to hospital. The worst of the three had the lower part of his leg pretty much severed. I believe the other two had either broken legs, feet or ankles. As the medics worked on the worst casualty, dear husband helped with the two less critical victims. After another 5 minutes or so a second ambulance arrived on scene, so they packaged up the last two to be transported and away they went.

Our youngest son said as we were waiting, “….. he makes me proud when he can help by doing stuff like this all the time”. I’m glad he feels that way.

I, of course, have spent about 20+ years watching my husband do these types of things all the time. I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve sat on the side of the road watching as he helped with either an injury accident, a fire, or even just crowd or traffic control when he saw there was a need. There’s probably an incident every six months or so where I’ve watched him help, but the kids probably see this less often.

My husband feels ‘called’ to his line of work and helping people. It’s not about him. It’s not about whatever company he’s working for. It’s about doing what’s best, what’s right and what’s needed. At work he is not performing a ‘job’. He does what he does with the protection and safety of people and property first and foremost in his mind. Nothing more. Nothing less. At times his attention to safety, precautions, feeling the need to speak to owners of buildings we enter where fire alarms aren’t working, when there are safety hazards (and on and on the list goes,…..) drives us crazy and makes teenagers particularly, feel slightly embarassed.

But aren’t we thankful there are people like him in the world paying attention to such things for our well-being? And aren’t we thankful there are those like him willing to help when someone is in need? I bet those two fellows were today.