You never need the fire department until you need it, and then you tend to need it a lot.

I want to thank and praise the firefighters from the Kahaluu station for responding to an odd request. A 90-year-old neighbor of ours called to say she was kayaking when she was swept on a high and rising tide into the old Hawaiian fishpond near the intersection of Kamehameha and Kahekili highways, across Hygienic Store and behind 7-Eleven. You know the place.

I go over, but of course the gate to the fishpond is all locked up, so I decided I needed the professionals and called 911. Within minutes the firefighters came roaring up with the siren wailing. And the gate magically opened: The owners of the pond had given them a remote. The challenge was to help my neighbor up from the water level about six feet below and 20 feet away from the road through a bunch of brush, and then pull up the kayak. She thanked them and said that she had never been rescued by a fireman before. And I said, “Well, you can cross that one off your list.”

Walter Wright

Kaneohe

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