YEREVAN, SEPTEMBER 4, ARMENPRESS. Two rescuers of the Ministry of Emergency Situations Rescue Service received a surprise gift today during the official celebration of the Ministry of Emergency Situations Personnel Day, an occupational holiday honoring Armenia’s firefighters and rescuers.

Lt. Colonel Garik Hakobyan and Senior Sergeant Andranik Ghazaryan from the Rescue Service had previously crashed their personal cars while returning home from a painstaking round-the-clock firefighting operation during an incident. They escaped the crash unharmed but their vehicles were damaged beyond repair.

Minister of Emergency Situations Felix Tsolakyan, who has numerously praised his firefighters and rescuers for the devoted and “heroic” job they are doing, decided to make a surprise for the two men by buying them the exact same cars.

“I’ve already said that many from our personnel were staying at the fire scenes for day and night and the exhaustion was reaching a point when they would crash their cars upon leaving the scene. The cars of Lt. Colonel Garik Hakobyan and Senior Sergeant Andranik Ghazaryan were totaled. We’ve made an exclusive decision, we found the same cars, of the same year, same color and we bought them as a gift for them,” Tsolakyan said.

The minister personally handed over the keys of the cars to the two men at the event.

Edited and translated by Stepan Kocharyan