John of God (1495-1550) was a Portuguese-born soldier who, at 27, joined the army to escape being forced to marry a girl he did not love. As a soldier, he was hardly a model of holiness, taking part in the gambling, drinking, and pillaging that his comrades enjoyed. One day, he was thrown from a stolen horse near the French lines. Frightened that he would be captured or killed, he vowed to change his life.
After he left the army, he worked as a shepherd for many years. Then, at 38, he decided that he should go to Africa to ransom Christian captives. He left his shepherding and set off for the port of Gibraltar. After several years as a construction worker, using his earnings to help the poor, he returned to Spain.
John was positive that God wanted him to start a hospital for the poor who received inadequate treatment, if any, from the other hospitals, but people thought of him as a madman. He decided to try to finance his plan by selling wood in the square. At night, he took what little money he had earned and brought food and comfort to the poor living in abandoned buildings and under bridges. Thus his first hospital was the streets of Granada.
Eventually, he was able to rent a house in order to move his nursing ministry inside. Of course he rented the house without money for furnishings, medicine, or help, so he supported the hospital by begging.
He went out into the streets and carried his ill patients back on his shoulders. Once there he cleaned them, dressed their wounds, and mended their clothes at night while he prayed.
Throughout his life he was criticized by people who didn't like the fact that his impulsive love embraced anyone in need without asking for credentials or character witnesses.
On one occasion, his persistent desire to help saved many people when the Royal Hospital caught fire. He rushed into the blazing building and carried or led the patients out. When all the patients were rescued, he started throwing blankets, sheets, and mattresses out the windows—how well he knew from his own hard work how important these things were. When he ran up to the roof to separate the burning portion of the building with an axe, he fell through the burning roof. All thought they had lost their hero until he appeared miraculously out of the smoke. For this reason, John of God is patron saint of firefighters.
When John jumped into a raging river to save one of his companions, he failed to save the boy but caught pneumonia himself. He died on March 8, his fifty-fifth birthday, of the same impulsive love that had guided his whole life.
His followers later formed the Brothers Hospitallers of Saint John of God, a worldwide Catholic religious institute dedicated to the care of the poor, sick, and those suffering from mental disorders.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_of_God
https://www.catholic.org/saints/saint.php?saint_id=68