A sheriff's deputy job is to respond when the community calls 911. But on Monday, the 911 call was about a deputy.
Warren County Sheriff's Deputy Bennie Jost was at work when he got word that his house was on fire. His wife and the family's four dogs were at home. He rushed there to see their house being consumed, but his wife was safe.
She got out with three of the dogs and and went back for the fourth.
"As far as I'm concerned, she's a hero," Jost said, himself an Iraq war veteran.
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But when she opened the door to get the fourth dog out, another ran back inside, he said. They lost that dog, as well as their house.
"We lost our house, not our home," he said. "We lost the pieces, not the memories. So we'll have our home back."
And sometimes, when it feels like everything is lost, you find all you really need is everywhere around you.
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Donations poured into the sheriff's office and through an online fundraiser, as well as offers of furniture and a place to stay.
"The community's response has been, I mean literally overwhelming," said Michael Glavis with the Warren County Sheriff's Office. "We've had probably 6 … 6 or 7 households offer up furniture. The monetary donations that have come in have been a flood."
Jost said, "If there was anything that could show that humanity's still good and people still care … It's this."
Jost said that within an hour of the fire, they had a place to stay just two doors down. A neighbor owns a fully furnished rental house, and the renters had just moved out a few weeks ago, making the house available when a family needed it most.
The stinging smell of burnt belongings lingers over half a lifetime of possessions reduced to ash. There was really only one item that's salvageable, a book. Its cover is charred, but the pages inside were untouched by fire or water damage. Jost says it isn't the bible, but it is a book about religion and faith.
"If there was one thing that gives me a message that it's gonna be all right, that's it," he said.
A public servant who could have been devastated with loss is instead brimming with gratitude, rescued by the community he protects.
