After 32 years of service as a Longview firefighter, the moment that best defines Luke Amos’ career happened when he wasn’t on duty.
Amos was home at lunchtime when he got a hysterical call asking where his granddaughter was.
His daughter Ashley had been flown to a hospital from a car wreck on Gray Road north of Lexington, but responders could not find her daughter Ellie, 18 months, and feared she’d been ejected.
It turned out that Ellie was with her great-grandmother all along. Amos, though, was still worried about Ashley and called police dispatchers on a private line to get information.
“I said, ‘If you’re busy, I’ll hang up now.’ And she told me, ‘We’re all family here, hon,’ ” Amos said. “Still makes me teary.”