Local teen recognized by medical professionals for heroic efforts
Jacob Reed helped get father to help after fall from deer stand
Jacob Reed, 13, spent Saturday night in the waiting room of Medical Center of South Arkansas, waiting for news about his father when he was given an honor for taking action when another was severely injured.
Jacob, with tears in his eyes, received a ProMed Challenge Coin for bravery and saving a life that evening.
Jacob and his father, John Reed, were out in the woods setting up a deer stand in preparation for hunting season. John Reed fell from the stand, approximately 30 feet, and landed flat on his back. The two were alone with dusk approaching.
Jacob said he rushed over to his father, who didn’t appear to be breathing and hit the back of his head on the base of a tree.
“He got up and I heard something. Something told me to turn around. When I turned around, he was falling,” Jacob said. “I think I heard the stand break, I think that’s what it was. But he was falling. I remember him yelling as he was coming down and trying to grab stuff. When he hit the ground, there was a big (sound), like a tree falling. I ran up to him and he wasn’t breathing.”
Jacob said his father was breathing again as he took John Reed’s cellphone and called 911. His father’s breathing was heavy and his eyes were rolled back, Jacob said, adding that they had very little service and it took five tries before he was able to connect with an operator.
“‘Hello, my name is Jacob Reed. I’m 13. My dad just fell from a deer stand and he thinks he broke his back.’ He was talking to me at this point,” Jacob said about his father.
Jacob said the first thing his father did was reach up to brush dirt out of his eyes with both hands,
which told Jacob that John Reed’s arms weren’t broken. He followed the dispatcher’s directions, telling her that his father was laying almost completely flat with his head on the tree.
Continuing to follow the dispatcher’s instructions, he asked his father his name and tried to give her landmarks to tell responders where they were. Jacob said he told her to follow the powerline to their truck and that they were across the road from a nearby deer camp.
“I knew that I had got 911 figured out so I started asking him what was hurting and he said his back. He kept complaining about his back,” Jacob said. “I knew he’d been going to a therapist and it had been hurting him. So I figured it had got to hurting him.”
Jacob said John Reed tried to get up by leaning against the tree, but couldn’t.
“I could tell that he was hurting, I could see it in his eyes,” Jacob said.
John Reed told his son that the responders were never going to find them if they stayed where they were, so Jacob helped his father crawl over to the Bad Boy they had ridden out on. He said he had to move it some to get John Reed into the passenger’s seat while straining himself as little as possible.
“He crawled with his arms all the way to it,” Jacob said. “Once he got to it, he put his arm on the edge and rested his head on it. I knew he was hurting really bad. I helped as much as I could, but I didn’t want to pull because I knew he was hurting. He picked himself up. He got himself in the seat.”
Jacob then started driving back the way they had come, toward the road, still on the phone with the dispatcher.
Jacob said that as he drove, his father tried to tell him that they were going the wrong way, but Jacob kept insisting that it was the right way.
Near the road, Jacob said he struggled to find it, though he knew they were close. The dispatcher asked if he’d like the officer to flash his lights and put on the siren and, once that was done, Jacob said he could see the lights a short way off and headed for them.
Jacob said the EMTs got his father onto the board and lifted him into the ambulance. Jacob said they weren’t going to let him ride in the ambulance, but his father insisted.
“I thought they were calling about supper,” said Jennifer Reed, Jacob’s mother. “As soon as he said ‘mom’ I knew something was wrong. He said ‘dad fell out of a deer stand.’ I’m kind of thinking ‘OK,’ but the denial process I was like ‘it’s not that, he just hurt his back a little bit.’ He said ‘he thinks he broke his back’ and I said ‘OK, do I need to come get you?’ and he told me ‘No, we’re in the ambulance. We’ll meet you at the El Dorado hospital.’
“And I heard somebody in the background say ‘John,’ and that’s when the call cut out because they were out of service. I didn’t hear John respond so I didn’t know if he was conscious or anything. I just knew that I had to get to the hospital to him and Jacob.”
Jennifer Reed said the family call tree started with her telling both her and her husband’s parents that he was being taken to the hospital, he fell from a deer stand and that’s all she knew.
Family came out to the hospital in force, filling the waiting room.
While in the waiting room, after John Reed was taken back into the emergency room, David Noble and Nich Miller, medics with ProMed came over to Jacob. Noble crouched down in front of Jacob and handed him a ProMed Challenge Coin.
“You did a good job,” he said to Jacob at the hospital. “He’d still be out there if it wasn’t for you.”
Noble gave Jacob the coin he had been carrying since he started with ProMed about four years ago. These coins are symbols of bravery and caring for others.
“Our challenge coins symbolize the commitment and bravery carried out in the care for others,” Ken Kelley, ProMed CEO, wrote in a Facebook post. “The EMTs and Medics at ProMed carry the coin as a reminder of our commitment to care for our community. What you did for your dad qualifies you to carry the coin because, when faced with the challenge of saving a life, you didn’t hesitate. You knew what to do and took action.”
John Reed suffered an L1 compression fracture, which is in the lower back. He also cut the back of his head, which required stitches. However, he is home now and expected to make a full recovery in a few months. While healing, John Reed can’t lift over 10 pounds and is in a brace to keep him from straining the injury. Typically, people who fall from that height don’t survive or end up paralyzed.
“I just felt like with the age that he is and the situation that happened in front of him, he went above and beyond somebody of that age,” Noble said. “He was brave, he did everything he could to help his dad, he did everything we asked him to do. I’ve seen people handle those situations far worse than he did. I just wanted him to know that we recognize him and we were impressed with him.”
Jacob has been hunting with his father since he was 5 and is proud of his numerous trophies decorating his bedroom. It’s something that he and his father plan on continuing, along with his younger sister. One thing John Reed said he has emphasized to his children is to be aware of their surroundings out in the woods and to make sure they’re being safe.
“We go through it,” John Reed said. “If we go out fishing or hunting and something happens to me, what do you do? They both go with me since they were little. A lot of the time it’s just me and them. It’s one of those things where when something happened, he knew what to do. He stepped in there and took action.”