Have you ever been on a fire station tour? I have and it was so fun so I thought it would be a great thing to take my kids to. I thought it would be educational and inspirational like it was for me. I have two little boys and one girl who is fairly well behaved in public, at home is a different story. Those boys get a little crazy. But the oldest is 7 then 5 and my 3-year-old is the girl who is the youngest. The oldest, Ryan, had been fascinated with Fire Trucks and all kinds of fireman shows and books, so I knew he was going to love this. Jack, the 5-year-old, was a little different in that he just loved everything to do with dinosaurs, but I knew he would love it as well because anything that Ryan liked to do Jack was right by his side. Amy, the youngest would just be dancing around anywhere she could try not to fall over. So walking into Sandy City Fire Department in Sandy, Utah, you can imagine their excitement.

They were so excited that they started to scream and run around which they normally did not do. But I just assumed they would start to calm down as the tour went on so I did my best to quiet them. About halfway through of the hour-long tour and activities I noticed that they started to be really quiet and listen to the fireman who was giving us the tour. Or so I thought. I turned around to thank them and reward them for being so good and that’s when I knew why they were being so quiet. Jack was missing and Ryan had tears in his eyes. Instant panic stuck as I thought about all of the possibilities of Jack sneaking into a fire truck and being taken all over Salt Lake County until they finally noticed there was a little boy in the back of the cab. I think I knew that this would never happen, but when your 5-year old goes missing, you aren’t really rational. I immediately started questioning Ryan as to what had happened and he confessed that Jack was getting on his nerves so he told him to play hide and seek with him to make him go away and then realized he could not find him.

The firemen were so kind and understanding and we all immediately went on a search for Jack and had some people check outside and make sure he wasn’t anywhere by the roads that were right by the fire station which were Highland Drive and E 9510 S. About 10 minutes later we finally found him asleep in a bundle of clean towels in the laundry room. He got scared so he cuddled up with some “blankets” and fell asleep. I was so relieved to find him and the firemen let him ride in the truck around the block with them just for being brave when he was scared. Thank heavens for the kind firemen of Sandy, Utah. They saved the day in an unexpected way for me.

More Sandy Tours