Home Team To The Rescue

Sports and real life need more separation, like church and state.

You have a team at work? How's their conditioning?

Are you wrestling with a problem? Did the problem try to pin you?

And enough of the 'end run' talk. You can't do an end run from your chair.

As much as we celebrate the winning streak of the Portland Winterhawks, and feel each Portland Trail Blazer win as a redemption for past deeds and a statement toward the future, there's only one team you need when your world turns upside down.

On I-5 north near the Moda Center, where the Los Angeles Lakers recently squeaked out a one point one win, near Veterans Memorial Coliseum's ice where most visiting teams fall to Portland, traffic stopped. A dead stop.

Just a little slow down around the noon hour, or something worse?

My wife and I were stuck in the traffic when we heard a chirping sound. She asked what it was. I said a bird when I thought it might be water on a fan belt. It was neither.

A police car with its light rack flashing used part of it's siren to ease through traffic. The low chirping part. He stopped near the I-84 ramp to I-5 north with the cavalry following. Fire trucks and an ambulance trailed in his wake.

All cars pushed to the outer lanes on both sides of the freeway to make enough room for the emergency show. I was the second car stopped, one short of getting past the accident.

A policeman walked the line of parked cars. He told me I might as well turn off the engine and get out to watch the home team extract a driver from a rolled over car.

Home team?

Extract?

I turned off my engine and walked toward the emergency scene. It wasn't far away. I didn't want to interfere so I didn't get too close, though it felt too close.

There's the car. It didn't look like anyone was getting out. Crushed bad. 

Here comes the police, firemen, and paramedics in as coordinated an effort as the blur offense. They were fast, hit their spots, and applied the right gear. The workers and bosses all clicked on one game plan: Get him out.

Traffic backed up over the Marquam Bridge and further. How far? In an hour it seemed like north and south stopped between Tigard and the Interstate Bridge. There's probably an algebra equation that answers the question.

Like seasoned athletes playing in front of tens of thousands in the stands and millions on television, the home team of Portland first responders didn't wilt under the pressure. These men and women scrambled from their vehicles to the pavement, getting the street level view of the problem before them.

You could see the training kick in, the repetition, the film work. Their idea of Win The Day was Save A Life. Any loss on their schedule meant a nightmare for the victim's family when they get that phone call.

Most times you never know why you get stuck in traffic. If it's an accident it's gone by the time you drive by. Not this time.

There's the emergency lights.

There's the upside down car.

There's the home team working the problem.

And there they are loading up the gurney.

The ambulance sped away, a good sign.

We cheer for the wins, the scores, the thrill of victory. We hurt with the agony of defeat, but this day, on this field of play, the home team held their own.

It was a spectacle of excellence, a shining example of a Portland many never see. And I had the second best seat in the house.