Full Transcript is Below:
– I grew up in the fire service. From the time I was seven years old, I was staying at a firehouse. Started firefighting when I was 16, as a volunteer. I became a career firefighter with DOD, Department of Defense, down in DC, and came to Frederick County and did a little over 11 years in Frederick County. May 9, 2016, on a working house fire, pulling hose, went inside to do an interior fire attack and the hose got pulled the wrong way, shoulder got ripped out. Ended up separating the shoulder. Went through multiple surgeries, physical therapy, and then finally, the county decided to medically separate me. I was going to buy a house, dealing with another lender, assured I had a loan. Told my place that I was renting from that I had bought a house, and I didn’t need to renew my lease. I went through a divorce during that time, along with the injury, so I had to claim bankruptcy during that. So my credit was shot as it was, and even with that, the loan officer was like, “No, you’re good to go, “you’re good to go. “I’ve looked at everything. “Everything’s fine.” So now we’re about a day or two away from settlement, and they were looking for a loan for me at this point. And I’m like, “We go to settlement tomorrow.” That was gut-wrenching and I was in a panic, trying to figure out, I don’t have family around here, so what am I gonna do? What’s gonna happen? I don’t have a place to live, and I can’t provide a place to live. It was a matter of hours that I needed to find a place to go. Phone rang about an hour later. It was my realtor, Thomas, and he said, “Hey, made a phone call, somebody’s gonna call you. “Guy named Jason.” About an hour after that, I get a phone call from Jason Fox, with NFM Lending.
– Immediately, having my own family to think about, I was thinking, what if this happened to me? And so immediately I wanted to help out as much as possible.
– [Jason] He said, “I wanna hear your story.” And I said I was a career firefighter, I got injured, and, ultimately, medically retired after three surgeries and physical therapy. He said, “Can you prove all that?” I said, “Absolutely!”
– And so, we got all the information that we needed, we took it to upper management, everyone put their heads together and said, “Yeah, this is a case of an extenuating circumstance, “and NFM wants to help out.”
– And later that day, he called me and said, “Hey man, 30-year fixed.” It was better than the original, from the loan, you know, the loan officer in the month before. Well from there, they ended up reaching out to the other realtor, and were able to negotiate to get me and the boys into the place that I was buying, before we settled. And wasn’t homeless anymore, and everything was kinda right back on keel.
– You’re always hearing, you know, of the ambulance going by, or the fire truck, and my daughter says, “I hope they’re okay,” you know, and so it’s just it’s always at my thought now, is that every time you hear that sound, someone’s not okay. And in this instance it was someone that’s actually trying to help someone else, who needed the help themselves. It was my obligation and my duty to help him the best I could.
– It was a relief. The boys were happy. I didn’t even have to really tell them what was going on. You talk about a weight off your shoulders, somebody sitting on your chest doesn’t even describe the weight that you have.
– Sitting and listening to him tell the story again, just, you know, kinda gets at me. Thinking, like, man, I really played a big part in his life, to get him from a place of total disaster, to a place of, I got my son a dog, because I told him when we had a yard and a fence, I’d get him a dog again.
– He wanted to know more about me, the situation, the story behind it, why, what happened, and that opened up a door to something that nobody else even remotely hinted about.