Sherry Furtick had just gotten back from the hospital to her 10th Street home in McComb around 3 a.m. Dec. 6 after being told her chemo treatments had caused her to catch pneumonia.
It was cold, and she realized her front door wouldn’t open.
“I put my key in the door. It just twirled around,” Furtick said. “It was so cold out here, so I called 911.”
McComb police Lt. Anthony Varaksa and Officer Ernest Parsons, a new hire in training, responded and were able to get Furtick’s door open. They told her she would need a new lock.
The next day, she was surprised to see Varaksa and Parsons back on her porch.
“They said, ‘Merry Christmas,’ and bought me a lock for my door,” she said.
They installed the new doorknob themselves.
“I get so tired of people knocking down cops,” Furtick said. “You get good people and bad people. Everywhere you go you’ll find them. I think they should get recognized when they do something good.”
“If it wasn’t for them, I don’t know what I would’ve done,” she said.
Because it was so late the night she couldn’t get into her house, she didn’t want to wake her neighbors and didn’t know who to contact. Furtick moved to McComb 16 years ago, but most of her family lives in South Carolina.
Furtick has triple negative Stage 2 breast cancer, and besides catching pneumonia, she said chemo treatments have given her carpal tunnel syndrome. A recent fall and leg injury have also made it hard for her to get around to run errands and buy groceries.
There are people she sometimes asks for help, but she tries not to ask too often because she’s afraid she’s keeping them from being with their families.
“I have to think about other people, too,” Furtick said.
Varaksa returned to Furtick’s house again Monday afternoon and checked to see how the new lock was working for her and how she was doing.
“He’s my guy!” Furtick exclaimed as Varaksa walked up her driveway. “You don’t know how much it meant to me that night.”
“We’re always here to help as much as we can,” Varaksa told her. “I think any other officer would’ve done the same.”
Law officers and first responders have been there for Furtick on multiple occasions.
About a week after Varaksa replaced her doorknob, a responder whom she couldn’t recall helped fix her refrigerator when it quit. When her fire alarms kept going off improperly, McComb firefighters came and fixed them.
Varaksa said it’s not often that people see the small ways police help the communities they’re part of.
He was hesitant to take any credit for his and Parson’s good deed and pointed out that a person doesn’t need a badge to help those in need.
“Officers do things all over the country, but we’re not looking for a pat on the back. It’s just who we are,” he said. “My wife and kids would do the same thing.”
