Retiring Escondido Fire Chief Mike Lowry remembers one traffic accident call back in 1992 that changed his life. Already with the city’s fire department for a decade, Lowry was the captain of a truck company that responded to a head-on collision on East Valley Parkway. A mother and her two twin little girls had been headed into town to buy things for the twin’s upcoming birthday party when an impaired driver crossed into their lane.
As the firefighters tried to cut the mother out of the wreckage she died. The little girls were saved and rushed by helicopter to Children’s Hospital.
“Later that evening I called my wife and said get the kids ready in the morning because we’re going to church,” Lowry said. “That was a turning point in regard to my faith.”
He said the incident reset his life priorities: faith, family, friends and fire department.
“We went to church that next day and have been going ever since,” Lowry said. “There was something about that call. This lady was a good person. I’m hoping she is in heaven now. I considered myself to be a Christian, but I wasn’t walking the way I probably should have been walking. My family wasn’t always my priority. That call in 1992 changed me.”