First responders to shooting attend hospital church service

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Daily Chronicle: We Remember

DeKALB – DeKalb Fire Department paramedic and firefighter Bill Lynch felt it was only right to attend.

He sat, on call and in uniform, among his colleagues Saturday afternoon in a room on the lower level of Kishwaukee Community Hospital. A group of about 30 community members and medical professionals attended an inter-faith community service in honor of the first responders to the Feb. 14, 2008, shooting at Northern Illinois University in which six people, including the gunman, died.

Lynch was on the scene that day, he said. Many nurses at Kishwaukee Hospital were also at the service; they had tended to the victims of the tragedy.

“There’s an entire community hurting, not just the university community,” said Roy Nelson, pastor at First Lutheran Church of DeKalb. “This is intended to pay tribute to first responders.”

In the wake of tragedy, first responders are sometimes overlooked, said Laura Crites, associate pastor of First United Methodist Church in DeKalb.

“Our community experienced something last year that still leaves many of us numb,” she said, during a sermon. “It affects us in ways that are unexpected and it will ring through the years.”

Passers-by periodically peeked their heads in the doorway, some lingering for the duration of the ceremony. Pastors lit a row of six white candles that were placed on a table in the front of the room.

“In this day, we remember those who reached outside of themselves, stayed up late and worked through the hours, somehow,” Crites said. “ ... For those strangers who walked up to others and offered a hug or a glass of water when that was exactly what was needed.”

The ceremony concluded with the singing of “Hymn of Promise” and many attendees stayed for refreshments and company.

The service was organized and sponsored by the Tri-Congregational Association of Churches in DeKalb, which is made up of First Lutheran Church of DeKalb, First United Methodist Church of DeKalb and St. Mary’s Church of DeKalb.

“I came to show support for the community,” said Lt. Don Faulbaber of the DeKalb Fire Department. “We need to show that we are part of the community.”