If you are a public servant in Robeson County and are spooked by such things, 2019 can’t get here quickly enough.

This county, already robbed this year of the lives of three highly visible public servants whose deaths were all sudden and unexpected, lost two more this past weekend, both of whom wore the blue.

Jason Quick was just 31 years old, a husband and father of two young children, and someone whom fellow Lumberton police officers said was born to protect others. On Saturday morning, we are told, Quick was not scheduled to work, but offered to help out because the department was shorthanded and that’s just how he rolled. He was killed when he was struck by a vehicle while working an accident on Interstate 95.

Hubert Sealey, who didn’t look his 53 years, also had a wife, and was the father of four children. Sealey worked as a patrol officer for the Red Springs Police Department, but he is better known as a county commissioner, having served the District 2 residents from 2002 to 2014. Most recently he re-emerged on the front pages of this newspaper as he tried to recapture the District 2 seat, made vacant by the Sept. 28 death of another 2018 casualty, Berlester Campbell.

Sealey had spent five hours on Saturday in Raleigh, arguing successfully that the process used to elect Berlester Campbell’s wife, Pauline, as the District 2 representative was either flawed or perhaps purposely corrupt. So another election is being planned, and while no one knows what its outcome would have been, there is the possibility Sealey would have returned to the Board of Commissioners, and a power shift would have occurred.

We spoke to him several times in recent weeks as he pursued the District 2 seat, and he remained as we remembered him — exceedingly polite, soft-spoken, and determined to make a difference for the residents of District 2.

So Quick and Sealey join Campbell, Patrick Pait, who died June 3 in a traffic accident, almost on the exact four-year anniversary of him becoming county attorney, and Leon Maynor, the Precinct 7 representative on the Lumberton City Council who was the longest serving council member when he died after a short illness on July 2.

Quick’s death, in particular, is a reminder of the dangers that lurk for those who run toward trouble, and not away from it. He is the first lawman in Robeson County to lose his life in the line of duty since Jeremiah Goodson, also a Lumberton police officer, who was gunned down in 2012 by a coward. Goodson, like Quick could have been on Saturday, was off-duty that July day, but was killed while trying to serve a warrant.

We are heartened once again to see how Robeson County has responded to yet another shared tragedy, which lately seem be coming in rapid fire. We know this community, and especially Quick’s brothers in blue at the Lumberton Police Department, will be there for his wife and children as their toughest days are ahead of them, both in the near and the far.

We hope as well that this community remembers once again how these first responders, police officers, firefighters and rescue personnel, selfishly put themselves square in danger’s way. Tragedies such as Saturday’s are unwelcome reminders that we should always be thankful for the sacrifices that they make every day on behalf of the rest of us.