Always on alert

Real rescue run on Hwy. 64 interrupts accident demonstration at emergency expo Saturday

Sentinel video, photos and story by Harrison Keely

 Hayesville – A real car accident cut short a rescue demonstration at the Emergency Services Fair Saturday afternoon June 28 as the local EMS rushed to Highway 64 to save lives.

"Five trucks in 30 seconds; that's a pretty good response time," said Tyler Parker, Fire and Rescue Squad youth chief.

 

The car accident occurred on Highway 64 East, past the Hiawassee River bridge and less than a mile from the location of the fair. Tyler said it was fortunate that the crew had everything ready to go.

 

"Our tools were all set out and then we got the call," he said. "At first I thought, 'Oh they're just doing a scenario [for the crowd].'"

 

It didn't take him long to realize that the radio was signaling a real emergency.

 

Melissa Ledford, a Hayesville resident who described herself as disabled, said she saw the crash occur. Ledford said that neither her nor another witness saw signal lights from a white truck that had pulled out into the highway.

 

Ledford said two young children were involved in a second car. Emergency responders extracted an elderly woman from a white vehicle and transported her to the hospital. The woman had been traveling with her husband.

 

"I'm just glad that those little kids didn't get hurt, and I really hate that his wife's hurt," Ledford said. "She just had some kind of surgery."

 

When Ledford applied her brakes, she said that the car following her did as well.

 

"It looked like a head-on collision," said Tyler, who stated he was too involved at the scene to notice much of the damage from the wreck.

 

"The white truck pulled out ... between her and [another] car," EMS responder Angie Parker said. "She didn't have time to stop."

 

Angie said the car was turning into Forsythia Lane at the time of the accident and that the children in the second car should have been in car seats.

 

"It's eight years [old] or eighty pounds."

 

After ensuring that victims of the accident were safe, the EMS returned to the Emergency Services Fair to finish the scheduled car-accident rescue demonstration. The EMS, however, weren't the only ones on a rescue mission.

 

Hayesville resident Kelsey Nicholson distributed Gideon Psalms and Proverbs books to the EMS team before the car-cutting action began.

 

The annual emergency fair, which took place from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. in the field across from Ingles, also featured a Rescue Air helicopter flown in from Blairsville, Ga. for kids and visitors to check out.

 

Visitors learned about car seat safety from the Seat Belt Convincer, part of the N.C. Governor's Highway Safety Program. A hazardous materials team from Asheville, N.C. was also at the site to answer questions and show off gadgets and tools.

 

Tyler said that most of the Fire and Rescue Squad's fundraising came from selling hamburgers and hotdogs at the emergency fair.

 

A woman who had locked herself out of her car in the Ingles parking lot crossed the highway at one point to seek assistance from the rescue teams who eventually directed her to a solution.

 

Responding to accidents like the one on Highway 64 is a day to day task for Tyler, who said that this was the first year the EMS had to answer a real emergency call during the fair.

 

Always ready to rescue, the EMS knows that getting interrupted is a day to day occurrence and, if anything, accidents aren't planned. Just ask Ledford.

 

"I was on the way to get my dog groomed," she said. "And I'm late."

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