Herculean effort saved Nathan’s life
Published: January 29, 2007
Nathan Taylor looked into a roomful of people yesterday and thanked them all for saving his life.
The Brantford teenager had the kind of chance that few people ever get, as he looked into the eyes of dozens of people who had each had a hand in keeping him alive despite incredible obstacles.
They had all gathered to see the product of their incredible teamwork: a healthy young man dressed in a sharp suit, the rest of his life still ahead of him and full of promise.
Many eyes in that room were brimming with tears as they looked back at young Nathan and considered the difference between what might have been and the great thing that happened instead.
Ten weeks ago last Sunday, Nathan, 18, was helplessly pinned to a grate that covered the overflow pipe of a giant farm pond, his body temperature crashing well below the point where many others die.
Dozens of rescuers risked their own safety that day, working in the frigid water until they could no longer move, taking turns warming themselves before plunging right back in. Later, dozens more medical staff brought Nathan back from the brink of death, where he hovered for hours after the accident.
OPP Constable Brandon Knoll had been one of the first to enter the water. He waded into the celebration of the great “save” at Hamilton General Hospital yesterday and embraced Nathan immediately.
“Thank you,” Nathan told him. “It means the world to me. It’s my life.”
Clearly, it also meant the world to the officer to have had a part in saving Nathan — a sentiment repeated in all corners of the room yesterday where everyone was talking about Nathan’s own strength.
“I’ll never forget his face for as long as I live,” Knoll said. “He’s my hero.”
Nathan and his uncle, Ken Taylor, had been clearing logs and other debris from the grate when suddenly the water found an opening and eight acres of pond started collapsing down the pipe, pulling Nathan with it.
Nathan’s uncle called 911 and went for a knife to cut him free of his chest waders. He held Nathan as long as he could.
Soon, the Cochrane family farm in Paris was a full-blown emergency scene with rescue vehicles, including an air ambulance, parked all over the pasture and the cornfield.
It was at that point that the farmer, John Cochrane, returned home from church, unaware the Taylors had even come that morning. Still in his suit, he rushed down to the pond and started in.
Though firefighters had cut away the bars of the grate and others had pulled desperately from several different angles, they had been unable to free Nathan.
A little farther down the bank of the pond, Cochrane knew there was an old creek bed. Like the grate, it was choked off by a beaver dam. As Cochrane pulled the logs away, rescuers in the water could feel the pressure on Nathan lighten, but it was still not enough. Cochrane’s wife Sandy called their neighbour down the road, Davey Scott, who had a four-wheel drive tractor.
Scott raced down, broke up the remaining debris and gouged a deep furrow into the bed leading back from the pond. Immediately the water followed, and moments later, the rescuers were able to pull Nathan free.
At Hamilton General Hospital, several teams of medical staff kept him alive though his temperature had dropped to 19 C and his heart had stopped soon after the helicopter touched down.
Incredibly, Nathan suffered no brain damage, and his body has recovered to the point where his dream of becoming a police officer remains a realistic goal. It’s a dream everyone in the room yesterday could share.
“If any one of them had quit along the way, I think the outcome would have been very different, and I thank every one of them for their determination,” Nathan’s uncle said. “I think a lot of it comes from Nathan, because even at the darkest points in that ordeal, when we were both stuck in there, he never quit.”
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