Lauren Ridlon was trying on her wedding dress when she received the call that her fiancée, Balitmore Fire Lt. Dillon Rinaldo, had been injured while battling a fire.
The couple, who became engaged in February, and were planning a May wedding, had discussed the dangers of being a firefighter.
"We discussed it in the reality that it is. He answered any question that I ever had. He never hid anything from me. He never tried to protect me from the reality, and I made sure to always ask. He prepared me for this. He made sure that I was taken care of and protected if something like this ever happened," she told WBAL.
She went from trying on her dress to racing to the hospital to be with the man she loved. The man who loved history, documentaries and taking long walks with her and their dog, Duncan.
"The Johns Hopkins Lifeline team allowed me to ride with him. I remained by his side in the hospital until the day he left."
Ridlon fondly remembered how the conversation on their first date was so engaging, it lasted three hours and neither ate a bite of food.
"He became my best friend. I felt completely safe with him. I felt that he made the world stop turning. He was everything I ever looked for..."
They talked about buying a home with a porch facing west because Rinaldo loved sunsets.
And, they had talked about growing old together. Rinaldo joked about having wheelchair races in their nursing home.
"He was brave, courageous, strong, fair and he's a brilliant leader. His BCFD family would say that he would hold the room in his hand without speaking a word."
