Have you ever seen the fire suppression system in a gas station or experienced it?. If no, then let me tell you what it is and what my experience was.
On the 5th of September, I travelled to Boston with my family - My mother, Father and Sister. We rented a car and set out on a road trip. The 5th was a Thursday. It was one of the most beautiful days. We saw Boston, had a good dinner and went to sleep. In the morning we decided to visit Cape Cod. I have always heard how beautiful it is. So we started out at around 10 AM and on the way, we stopped at a gas station. I got out of the car, paid for the gas, selected the grade and as soon as I was about to fill in the gas, there was a loud noise pppphhshssssssss noise and there was white rain. Something like this
During my speech because of technical problems I could not show this video so I described it. But I meant to show below video
video from 10 seconds to 35 seconds
As soon as it happened, within a second, there was sheer panic. Without even thinking my instant reaction was to run away from the gas station, but it was futile. I ran around 50 steps as fast as I could but could not see the end. I opened my eyes, and there was a very thick, dense white cloud everywhere. I could not see anything, I could not hear anything, and I could not breathe. Now I am going to stretch these few seconds to describe all my thoughts and feelings for a moment. My first thought was that I am in heaven. I was excited to be in heaven, phew !!!! `But then, as my body gained consciousness, the second thought that came to my mind was if I am in heaven, why is it hurting so much. Isn't heaven supposed to be a calm, serene, and soothing place to be, where you have angels coming and taking care of you? Why don’t I see or hear anything? Why can't I breathe, and why is my skin feeling irritated? And along with these thoughts, the most important thought that came to my mind was what happened to my family? I left them in the car. But the dust rain was so dense that I could not see or hear anything, not to mention, my eyes were hurting bad and I was not able to breathe. For a minute, I was relaxed thinking that my folks are in the car so there will not be a problem, but soon I heard my sister’s voice shouting my name. It sounded like she was in a panic. I asked her to stay in the car, but did not realized that it was too late since she had left the car door and window open, which let all the dust inside. Luckily, I heard the loud voice of a man calling everyone to safety. It was coming from the other end. I used his voice as a rope and took my chance and started running towards it, which got me to safety. Even after I was out of the dense cloud, I still had problems in breathing and I was coughing out powder. My eyes had soo much powder in them that I started seeing everything foggy.
After a while, everyone was called inside the convenience mart in the gas station and employees at the gas station offered us water and directed us to the restrooms to get ourselves cleaned - wash our faces, eyes, etc. Inside the gas station, when an employee called 911, that’s when we came to know that all the chaos that happened was because of the fire suppression system that was set off accidentally. Once the fire department arrived, they inspected the gas station for any possible fire that may have triggered the fire extinguisher. After a half an hour of inspection, they did not find anything. They also confirmed that the powdered discharge was not harmful. After a while, they called an ambulance to confirm and get acknowledgement that we do not have any problems.
Today, when i looked back and think about the incident, I feel glad that no one was hurt. This would be the first time in my life that I went through a big incident like this and i did not even feel scared. May be the visualization of heaven calmed me down. I was not afraid of dying, as a matter of fact, after all incident, I emerged as a strong person. I had to take care of my parents, and sister and make sure they are alright. This taught me what “responsibility” means.
I would like to give you an analogy. Have you seen a bird’s nest in the trees? If not, I have seen many birds’ nests, and during hurricanes, storms or rains they often break or fall down. Many times all the eggs in it break and the baby birds die. But even after this, from the very next morning, these birds will start rebuilding new nests. In this incident, a lot of our things were damaged. But instead of mourning about damaged or lost things, we reconciled everything and decided to focus on getting our lives back on track as soon as possible.
To be honest with you, I did not get any settlement from that gas station, although I did ask for all the incurred expenses, like cleaning the rental car. I am glad and satisfied to know that no one was hurt and everyone is safe. Now every time I encounter any incidence like this, I will know that there are many more things in life to look forward to than to regret past tragic events.
Thank you
