The news story that’s hitting me hard this morning is from San Antonio Texas where eight people were found dead in the back of a tractor trailer. Since it’s been 104 here, and I live in a place that’s generally considered cooler than San Antonio, I’m going to go out on a limb and say the cause of death was probably hyperthermia.

And for those of you who don’t have my vast and encyclopedic medical knowledge, yup… that’s just a fancy word for “human trafficking.”

So, the police were called after someone inside the trailer asked a passerby for a glass of water.

Could you please do a wellness check on this trailer, which is parked in front of my big box store?

The passerby comes back with the glass of water.

Talk about bringing a knife to a gunfight. Can you imagine? Standing there in the hundred degree heat, in front of an 18 wheeler filled with dying people, and holding one Styrofoam cup?

And then, you wait for the police.

I’m not saying the passerby did anything wrong. It’s not the kind of situation you prepare for, and it’s hard to process something like that, in the moment.

The thing is… if someone’s asking you for water from inside a truck, you already know damn good and well that things are not okay.

So, you turn around, walk into the store, and get a bolt cutter. (big box stores sell that kind of thing) You break the locks, and let people out of the truck.

You break the glass on the car.

The whatever it is that is getting hotter by the minute.

That’s not legal advice. It’s moral advice.

And let’s be honest… did you think the guy who has a trailer full of human beings is actually going to stick around to sue you over a lock? No. He’ll be busy telling the cops he has no idea who owns the trailer, and how did that get there? Assuming he doesn’t run fast enough.

The extra five minutes for the cops to get there?

That’s a lot of degrees.

When every second counts… just ask yourself whose bolt cutter is closest.