Civil Defense chief and president of the National Emergency Commission (CNE), General Luis Luna Paulino, has called the Civil Defense rescue workers and volunteers, “heroes”, and praised their efforts during the Christmas and New Year’s holiday operations. Their only job is to save lives, and they do not get anything in return. Recognition for their work goes to others, and they only become important when nature calls upon them to act. They are called volunteers and their jobs are to patrol the highways, and they are neither military or police. They watch over beaches and swimming areas along the rivers, over people who have drunk too much alcohol, and entire cities during hurricanes. The CNE has 200,000 volunteers on call for any emergency. Tragedy sometimes occurs, as happened last 15 December when two volunteers were killed by a speeding truck as they attempted to direct traffic around a serious vehicular accident on the Duarte Highway. A similar occurrence took the lives of a father and son on 8 January. These two incidents prompted the idea of creating a fund to support the families of the CD volunteers who are killed or injured in the line of duty. Only adults are allowed to take part in Civil Defense volunteer programs, and this means that injuries often affect the family breadwinners.