“Why is she angry? It's not even our fault,” muttered a younger rescue team member beside me. He seemed annoyed. “Besides, who the heck is in their right mind allowed an old woman to go to the forest alone to pick berries in such heavy rain?”
“Shush, Hansen,” the senior rescuer reprimanded.
“What? I’m not taking a blame for an old lady’s death which was actually the fault of her guardian!” The younger member grew angrier as he spoke. “I know our job is to save lives, but we're not God. We can't bring someone back to life after they've been buried six-feet under landslide. It was an accident.”
“That's enough, Hansen!” The older rescuer snapped. “Hansen is our newest member. He's still learning the ropes, and he needs to keep his mouth shut immediately,” he said to me with regret, glaring at Hansen at the end.
“We are really sorry,” with that, they walked away. I didn’t understand why mother insisted on going to the mountain in the midst of heavy rain. As I tried to process what had happened, Hansen's words echoed in my mind.