"Thank you so much," said Vanderford, as she gave the Sonoma County Fire crew hugs.
"I saw them coming down D street with a ladder and they said, 'oh, we're going to put your lights up for you and I'm sure I just went what?"
The crew finished the job her son, Rod Jamison, began a couple of weeks ago after falling off a ladder.
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"I looked up and kind of got that feeling all of a sudden like when you stand up too fast and next thing I knew everything just shrunk and I was on the ground," said Jamison. "I kind of remember going through the rose bush a little bit but that's it," he said, noting he also recalls feeling a lot of pain. "I ended up with a separated shoulder, contusions in my chest, bruised bones, but amazingly enough no broken bones."
"We pull up here and there's Christmas lights on ground, he's on the ground, ladder's toppled over there's Christmas lights all over," said Brandon Hefele, Engineer, Sonoma County Fire District.
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The crew went to work and sent Jamison off in ambulance to the hospital; and then, they had an idea. "We were sitting there and looked at each other and we said let's just put the lights up for her. We've got the time to do it let's just put the lights up for her," said Hefele.
"It was just so fantastic that they would do such a thing for me, you know," said Vanderford. "I'm going to cry all over."
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Tara Campbell: "What do you think it means to your mom to have this gesture?"
Rod Jamison: "A feeling of community here because the pandemic, when she first moved here she was lonely. Then she started meeting people, but to have that happen really gave her a sense of community."
In a showing of gratitude Vanderford baked some sweet holiday treats for the crew. "I just wanted to do something for them because I still can't believe they did it. It's just unbelievable to me that they would think to do that," she said.
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