Twenty-eight years ago, firefighter Captain Chuck Mongomery of the Glendale Fire Department in Arizona, found himself rescuing Christy Lessnau and her mother. The pair had been involved in a car accident when a drunk driver hit them after running a red light. “We were stationed up around Union Hills and 63rd Avenue. Got dispatched one Saturday morning for a serious auto accident on 53rd and Beardsley. When we arrived we had three patients total but two in very serious circumstances,” said Chuck. “I remember looking over, my mom is completely unconscious,” Lessnau recalled. She was just 16 at the time and suffering from a large cut near her chin and throat. “I was walking, and I could feel this warmness just go down my throat and that’s when I felt the opening cut.” Lessnau always remembered the two firefighters who saved her life and offered her comfort during the horrific experience.

Now retired, Montgomery was the one finding himself in need of rescue as he sought chemotherapy treatments at City of Hope. Little did he know that Lessnau was one of the nurses at City of Hope. It was during his second chemotherapy treatment that Lessnau overheard him talking about his experiences as a firefighter. She began to ask him questions about his career and what department he had worked for. “He said, ‘Glendale,’” said Lessnau. “And I said, ‘Do you know a gentleman named Rollie?’ And he said ‘Yeah he was my driver engineer’ and I was like ‘Really?’ I said ‘Rollie was one of the guys that saved my life. Do you know Chuck?’ And I’ll never forget, he took his hat off and he goes ‘I’m Chuck,’ And I was like ‘No way.'”

It was a divine coincidence, which enabled Montgomery to thank one of the men who had saved her life all over again. “Unfortunately, this is not the way I would want to see anyone, especially someone who saved my life. But it was a great moment and really surreal just to thank him again,” said Lessnau. Montgomery was gratified to hear how well Lessnau was doing since the accident. Lessnau now serves as part of Montgomery’s treatment team as he battles stage 3 lymphoma. Montgomery said he is fighting the diagnosis like he would a fire. “It’s the same way you fight a fire you go there and you don’t say, ‘Well I think we’ll just pass on this one’. You have to formulate a plan and attack it. This is just a fire that’s inside of me that’s needing to be extinguished one bag at a time.”