Most people use their personal days for a doctor’s appointment or to run those long-overdue errands they haven’t been able to fit into their busy schedule.

If you are Bill Cummings or Daniel “D.J.” Matthews – a pair of West Chester residents, volunteer firefighters at the Fame Fire Company, and integral members of the Chester County Rescue Task Force – you take the day off to save a man’s life.

On the recent morning of Monday, Sept. 19, the two were preparing for their usual workday when they were suddenly summoned and dispatched to Glasgow, Inc.’s Catanach Quarry in Malvern, to the site of “a serious accident.”

Amidst the rain and slippery conditions that morning, an industrial dump truck hauling dirt at the top of the quarry slid 100 feet down an embankment, and came to rest with its driver trapped inside.

“We were called in to assist the East Whiteland Fire Company,” said Cummings, 54, a nurse by education who works for a pacemaker company based in Minneapolis. “It was an involved event that required a lot of manpower and equipment. Right away, we knew we’d have to send guys down on rope.”

One of those guys was Matthews, a 24-year-old personal investor at Vanguard.

“There were a number of qualified individuals there, and I just wanted to make myself available to do anything for the benefit of the rescue,” said Matthews, who grew up in Warrington, Bucks County, and graduated from West Chester University as a dual major in economics and finance.

“Bill said, ‘Alright, this is what we’re doing. D.J., you’re going down.’ I was happy to do it.”

“With rope rescues, there’s no second chances,” said Cummings, a Havertown native who has either been volunteering or working full-time as a firefighter for 38 years. “You have to do it 100 percent.

“We spend hundreds of hours training for this eventuality and maintaining the technical skills necessary for this type of rescue. But all it takes is a frayed rope or an incorrectly-tied knot, and they’re gone.”

By now, we all know that the driver was lifted to safety in what appeared to be a seamless rescue effort.

“From the time we got the call to the time the driver was loaded into the ambulance, it was about two and a half hours,” said Cummings, who has been with Fame since 1997. “It seems pretty straightforward, but let me tell you: I’ve been doing this for a long time, and this was one of the more impressive rescues I’ve been involved with.”

For Cummings, Matthews, and the rest of West Chester’s Fame Fire Company, the story does not end there.

Not when they are in the midst of a capital campaign to try to raise $2.5 million to renovate and build a two-story, 8,000-square-foot addition onto the fire station.

Fame’s current station, located on Rosedale Avenue, was built in 1973 and can no longer accommodate the diversity of emergency-response equipment needed for the rescue operations Fame provides.

Those services were on full display at the quarry, and they benefit the entirety of Chester County, all of the half-million people who live within its 760 square miles.

Fame has a dire need for updated quarters. Its personnel operate in cramped spaces, and its HVAC system is outdated and inefficient.

“Most capital campaigns affect just a small area,” said Bill Ronayne, a volunteer at Fame and co-chair of the fundraiser. “But with the Task Force, we have a much broader reach. This is for the good of the whole county.”

Fame has been recognized by the Internal Revenue Service as a 501(c)(3) organization and accepts tax-deductible donations. Click here to contribute.

Your money will supply the likes of Cummings and Matthews with the space and resources to do what they do best and what so few others are capable of.

As for Matthews, he couldn’t have spent his Monday off in September doing anything more important.

“This is a good hobby to have,” he said. “Keeps you on your toes, that’s for sure.”