Local rescue crews save sacred book in New Orleans
Published: September 16, 2005
Chris Gadbois and his team of rescuers knew they’d be risking life and limb to save people trapped by floodwaters in New Orleans.
What they didn’t know is that they’d also be saving a very sacred book that means so much to the Sikh faithful around the world.
“About half the temple was underwater, the rest of it was completely underwater, it was in area that had some hostilities going on,” said Gadbois. “It wasn’t a secure area.”
Each Sikh temple has a copy of the Guru Granth Sahib, but in New Orleans, the book had to be left behind amid forced evacuations.
“They knew how important it was to us, and they knew how much we respect that,” said Manjit Singh from the Bakersfield Sikh Temple.
The book is the religion’s supreme spiritual authority, so a lot was at stake in the risky boat operation the Bakersfield team undertook last Wednesday.
“Trying to balance safety with cultural sensitivity was the hardest thing,” said Gadbois. “They had a 100 to 90-year-old priest on the boat with them, and they had to explain to him that he couldn’t go.”
Word of the rescue spread around the world through a Sikh website and email. The book apparently was floating undamaged in five feet of water.
Sikhs in Bakersfield couldn’t be prouder.
“We really respect those people,” said Singh. “First of all, they are just putting their life in jeopardy and other people while they are helping us rescue our holy books.”
“I’m Catholic and his equivalency to me was ‘this is kind of like saving the Pope,’” said Gadbois. “We kind of joked with him and said ‘we didn’t charge you enough.’
It’s a team of former military members that also has 150 human rescues to its credit in New Orleans.
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