Nerve-racking rescue puts passerby in hero’s role
Published: April 5, 2006
Justin Weaver celebrated his 23rd birthday as a hero.
An apprentice line worker for Gibson Electric Membership Corp., Weaver was looking for damaged or downed power lines when he encountered the horrific results of Sunday’s storm.
Traveling along Old Dyer/Rutherford Road in Gibson County at about 8:30 p.m., Weaver saw a section of downed poles in front of a co-worker’s home - then he saw the house.
“The south side of his house was gone,” Weaver said. “The outer walls had caved in, and the roof was gone. It was just a pile of bricks.”
Underneath that pile of bricks lay a co-worker and friend, whom Gibson Electric officials declined to identify because of privacy laws.
“His dresser had fallen on top of him and landed on his hip, and the bricks and shingles and his whole house was on top of the dresser,” Weaver said. “I could see just his neck, his head, and his left arm. That was all you could see.”
Weaver called 911, but local emergency services were so inundated with calls for help he could not get through. So Weaver used his company’s radio to call the Gibson Electric dispatcher for assistance.
While his dispatcher tried to reach 911, Weaver started yanking bricks off his friend, but the weight of the dresser kept Weaver from being able to free his co-worker.
Alerted to Weaver’s rescue attempts, Gibson Electric workers began lighting up Weaver’s cell phone, offering their assistance. But Weaver and his trapped friend were isolated from help.
Storm debris, including a large shed, lay strewn across the section of Old Dyer/Rutherford Road that is about a half-mile outside Dyer city limits, keeping other Gibson electric workers, such as J.J. Whitwell, from reaching the two men.
“It was nerve-racking, because I knew I wanted to get the dresser off him, but I couldn’t lift it and pull him out from under it,” Weaver said.
Then the angels seemed to intervene.
A neighbor of the victim suddenly drove by, and Weaver was able to flag him down. While the neighbor, his wife and their son, whose names Weaver did not know, began uncovering the trapped electrical worker, a farmer appeared on the road. Using his tractor, the farmer easily shoved the shed aside, allowing Whitwell to reach his two friends.
By then the trapped co-worker was free from the rubble.
Having seen seriously injured men before, Whitwell decided not to wait on an ambulance.
“It would have taken a long time for an ambulance to get there,” he said, “and we could get him there just as fast.”
Hospital workers told Weaver on Monday that their friend had suffered a broken hip, bruised ribs and possibly a bruised spleen. Medical personnel airlifted the injured man to Vanderbilt hospital on Monday for non-life threatening injuries.
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