Rescuers, child reunite at Red Cross hero lunch
Posted on Thursday, November 13, 2008
It’s not often that rescue workers reunite with the people they save, so Little Rock firefighters and MEMS paramedics were thrilled to see 1-year-old Caleb Gore on Wednesday during the American Red Cross of Greater Arkansas Heroes Awards luncheon.
Paramedic Fred Sterling was particularly moved as he proudly carried the toddler in his highchair from a table near the back of the Doubletree Hotel banquet room to the front to seat the boy and his grandmother at the table with the men who helped save his life.
Sterling hadn’t been a paramedic a full day yet — he had just risen from emergency medical technician — when his team was called to Ottenheimer Park to transport a toddler who had fallen into the pond there. Caleb had wandered away from his day-care group when he fell into the water and lay submerged for an undetermined time before a man who lives near the park jumped in to pull him out.
“The first thing I did was pick him up and hug him,” Sterling said. “This is the first time we’ve seen him since that day.”
“You always wonder how everything turned out,” Alan Falcone, another Metropolitan Emergency Medical System paramedic, said after the luncheon as the group visited with Caleb and his grandmother, Lisa Bryant.
Also on the team of Caleb’s rescuers was MEMS Capt. Corey Burns and firefighters Vaden Holmes, Steve Davis and Michael Roberts. All were among 23 Arkansans honored for heroic deeds in several life-threatening situations.
Bryant said she was grateful to meet her grandson’s saviors and that it was obvious to her that they were thrilled to see Caleb.
“I think it touched them. They said it looked really grim for Caleb and just to see him was wonderful. They’re all so nice, and this guy here,” Bryan said, pointing to Sterling, “was a newbie on the squad. It was his first time to resuscitate an infant, so I think it meant the most to him.”
Also honored at the luncheon were:
Jason Sutton, Pope County Emergency Medical System, who rescued a mother and her two children from a partially submerged vehicle. James Beck, Little Rock Fire Department, who provided advanced first aid to a severely injured car-crash victim. Cpl. Ramey Lovan, Arkansas State Police, Lt. Gov. Bill Halter and Nathan Hamilton, director of governmental affairs. Lovan was escorting Halter and Hamilton to a meeting in Paragould when they rescued an elderly woman who had fallen from her wheelchair on the front porch of her burning house. Bud Masker and Cody Fulmer, transplant coordinators for Arkansas Regional Organ Recovery Agency, who responded to an emergency call for help with a car accident near Greenbrier. Masker squeezed into a crushed car to help a victim.
James Price and Sandra Phillips of Jacksonville, who rescued two adults and a child from a home after an explosion.
Kaley Radar of DeWitt, who kicked out the rear window and dragged her unconscious sister from their car by her hair to keep her from drowning after they crashed into a creek.
James Greenand U. S. Air Force Tech Sgt. Jason Trezza, who helped pull two adults and two children from a burning car in Jacksonville. Rodney Himon, Larry Eaton, Pine Bluff neighbors, Dexter Lunsford of the Pine Bluff Police Department and Harold Clark of the Fire Department. Himon and Eaton helped Lunsford and Clark rescue neighbors trapped in a burning house with barred windows. Mike Huckabee, the former Arkansas governor, who saved Sen. Robert Pettiger of North Carolina from choking during a campaign event in South Carolina. Dale Nicholson, general manager of KATV Channel 7, was awarded the 2008 Clara Barton Distinguished Humanitarian Award.
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