Co-authored by: Channa Sweet and Jill Feldon LaNouette

Carol awoke at 2 a.m. to an unimaginable scene unfolding in front of her. She was trapped in a room with smoke burning her nose and flames licking at the door. Unable to leave through her bedroom door, she climbed out her window and escaped from the third floor down an already burning fire escape. With singed hair and bare feet firmly planted on the cold ground, she stood across the street feeling like she was “watching her whole life burn away.”

Home fires are the most frequent disaster in the United States. They can strike quickly and leave you with as little as two minutes to safely escape, which, in 1957, a young woman named Carol Pohl quickly discovered.

In her most vulnerable moment, Carol recalled watching an American Red Cross volunteer arrive. “The volunteer showed up at dawn when it was still freezing cold, just as the sun was coming up. The scene was like a movie in my mind. She came to me, wrapped me in a blanket and gave me warm clothing.”

Carol felt the compassion exuding from the unknown volunteer who spent the early morning hours caring for perfect strangers. Carol remembered, “I was so cold, and I think she saved my life.”

The Red Cross volunteer clothed 15-year-old Carol in a Pendleton brand sweater, which Carol wore throughout high school to remind herself of the volunteer. “She was so important to me in my formative years, and I don’t even remember her name. But she was there when I needed her, and I never forgot her.”

Carol was inspired by the volunteer’s service that night and spent 37 years as a middle school teacher in San Francisco as a way of paying that kindness forward. She remembers one thing vividly after all these years: “None of the stuff you have matters. The people do. I want to help people in trouble, and the Red Cross is a good place to go.”

To this day, the generosity of that volunteer continues to inspire Carol’s philanthropic journey. She is considering becoming a member of the Legacy Society at the Red Cross, a committed group of donors who have remembered the Red Cross in their will, trust or other planned gift to make a lasting impact. Her planned gift would ensure that others will receive life-saving support in their most vulnerable moments—just as she did.

That same spirit of compassion and preparedness that changed Carol’s life continues today through the Red Cross’s Sound the Alarm campaign. Volunteers install smoke alarms free of charge in at-risk communities and help families create escape plans to practice with their household—simple steps that can save lives before disaster strikes.