The people who keep residents safe every day will be honored during America s First Responders Fest in South Elgin Saturday. The event, formerly known as the Back the Blue Festival, will run from noon to 9 p.m. at Panton Mill Park.
By Burt Constable
His voice catches and his eyes water as Ryan Mains tells this story from his days as a combat medic in Iraq. Hearing him tell it makes me gasp and forces me to dab my eyes. Reading it might not be much easier, but it is essential to who Mains is today.
I can still see it clear as day, as if it is happening this morning, says the soft-spoken 41-year-old husband and dad, as he sits at the kitchen table in the family home in Huntley.
A combat medic with the 3rd Infantry Division pushing into Baghdad at the start of the war with Iraq in the spring of 2003, Mains had near-misses with mortars and sniper bullets, and he had the grim task of realizing when to stop treatment and zip a comrade into a body bag. With the city under U.S. control, Mains was part of a team providing emergency care to the residents when he got the call about a traffic accident.