He was shoveling the snow from his driveway when his heart gave out.
A neighbor caught sight of what was happening and called 911. The firefighters and paramedics from Greenfield, Wisconsin, arrived within minutes: it was a Sunday in February 2015, and the city had just received nearly 30 centimeters of snow. They stabilized the man and took him to Aurora St. Luke’s Medical Center in Milwaukee, still unsure whether he would survive.
What they did next was not in any protocol. Instead of returning to the station, they went back to the empty house and finished shoveling the driveway he had been unable to finish. A neighbor took a photo of them without their realizing it, and the image spread across the country: more than 21,000 people shared it. His daughter later said that the family was overwhelmed by the generosity. The department dubbed the gesture #ShovelItForward, and ever since, thousands of people across the United States have gone out to shovel snow for neighbors they do not even know.