She called out Columbia firefighters on TikTok over a traffic encounter. They visited her
Lawyer Lori Murray was thoroughly confused when a fire engine pulled up to her office building in downtown Columbia last Thursday.
There was no reason — that she could think of — for the department to pay her a visit. The firefighters must’ve been there for someone else, she thought. Perhaps someone accidentally dialed 9-1-1.
So when she heard a knock on her door and opened it to see four firefighters, she was shocked.
“We saw your video,” one of them said.
“Are you mad?” she asked.
Earlier that week, Murray had posted a video on her TikTok account about an encounter she had with a Columbia fire truck.
She was leaving work as an engine — truck one, second shift — came up behind her with its horn honking.
Confused, she pulled to the side to let the engine pass. She assumed the firefighters were responding to a call and that she was in their way. Instead, they turned into the Columbia Fire Department Headquarters just up the street.
“Where’s the f------ fire dude?” she said in the video. “Was it your dinner? ‘Cause I’m trying to get home to mine too, I just don’t have a siren.”
Murray meant it as a joke, and after she posted it she thought nothing of it.
Around midnight that night, one of the firefighters stumbled upon the TikTok and sent it to the rest of the crew.
“(The horn) can be abrasive,” firefighter Andrew Morris said. “We weren’t trying to be malicious.”
They decided to pay Murray a visit. And they brought gifts.
“It was hilarious and mortifying at the same time,” Murray said. “I was blood red. … They really got me.”
She said she had always known firefighters to have a reputation for being good-natured pranksters. They lived up to that reputation.
Murray said she is usually prepared for everything, but she wasn’t prepared for that. No one had ever come up to her about a video she had made before.
The four firefighters brought Murray an air horn, a gift certificate for dinner and an explanation.
As it turns out, they were honking to get the attention of the truck in front of them. They had just come back from a successful water rescue call at Main and Whaley streets. A cell phone was left on the bumper, and they were hoping to get the attention of the driver so he’d stop to retrieve it.
It was also an opportunity to bridge the gap between the fire service and the people they serve, Morris said. It’s something they love but don’t always have the chance to do.
“I feel like I’ve made new friends,” Murray said.
At the end of the visit, Murray got a chance to climb into the fire truck and blow the engine horn herself, which she made sure to document in a second TikTok she made about the kindness the men had paid her.
“They’re great guys, they have such a good sense of humor,” Murray said in her follow-up TikTok. The video now has over 70,000 views.
“It was heartwarming for us, it really was,” Morris said. “We could kind of see and feel the love for the fire service. It was a special moment for us.”
This story was originally published July 29, 2022 at 2:03 PM.
