LAYTON -- Lisa Becraft knew firefighters take care of each other.
But that knowledge didn't prepare the woman, who is caring for her husband Mike Becraft, for the service of willing firefighters, who recently built a wheelchair ramp at her home.
The Utah Firemen Association with North Davis Fire District learned that Mike Becraft, a retired firefighter, could no longer move without the assistance of a wheelchair.
"It's only been for the last three months that he has needed a wheelchair," said Lisa Becraft.
Mike Becraft, 65, was diagnosed with progressive supranuclear palsy.
PSP is a brain disease that has no known cause, treatment or cure. It affects nerve cells that control walking, balance, mobility, vision, speech, and swallowing, according to the CurePSP website.
Mike Becraft retired from the North Davis Fire District in 2010, Lisa Becraft said. He made fire fighting a career when he joined the Roy Fire Department in 1975 at the age of 18.
He served as the fire chief for the Defense Depot of Ogden until it closed, then worked for Layton Fire Department for 10 years before heading to North Davis Fire District, where he was employed as the fire inspector, she said.
Taking her 6-foot, 190-pound husband anywhere became difficult, Lisa Becraft said. She had to help him walk down the stairs from her home into her garage.
And then help him walk back up the stairs when she got home.
"Basically, I was carrying him," Lisa Becraft said.
Lisa Becraft said she talked to the certified nursing assistant who comes to their home about a ramp, and she learned how much it was going to cost.
She also mentioned the need for a ramp to Mike Becraft's brother, Jerry Becraft, who is a fire inspector with Roy Fire Department.
Jerry Becraft called his son, Mark Becraft, who is the deputy fire chief at North Davis Fire District.
"I asked Capt. (Roger) Montgomery if we could do this through the firemen association," Mark Becraft said.
Mark Becraft "just asked me to do it and I did," Montgomery said. "It's no big deal."
Montgomery and another firefighter showed up at the Becraft home to measure the area for the ramp. Montgomery contacted his in-laws, who own Worldwide Packaging & Crating in Clearfield. They donated the lumber of the ramp.
And then on Dec. 18, firefighters delivered lumber to the Becraft home.
"I asked them what was going on, and they said it was for the ramp," Lisa Becraft said.
The following day, between 10 and 15 firefighters with carpentry skills and equipment, including Jerry Becraft, showed up on their own time to hammer, saw and drill into place a wooden ramp.
"They whipped it out in three hours," Lisa Becraft said.
"It's perfect," Lisa Becraft said about the ramp.
Lisa Becraft can now wheel her husband of 25 years out of the house and into the car.
Before the ramp was installed, Lisa Becraft said they limited their trips to necessities.
"Now we can go on fun trips, like the movies and stuff," she said.
Her husband is "absolutely awed" that those he worked with thought enough of him to help him, Lisa Becraft said.
"This was a wonderful gesture," she said. "There is no way we can repay them enough for what they did for us."
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