Three escape with minor injuries thanks to their seat belts
ROCK BLUFF – A Bristol teenager and his two young cousins escaped serious injury Saturday after a tire blew out and sent their truck off the road. The Ford Ranger overturned three and a half times and became airborne. It was about six feet off the ground when it slammed into a tree and then landed on the passenger’s side, leaving the driver’s side up in the air.
The driver, 17-year-old Jessie Brown, cut himself out his seatbelt and then tur
ned to free his niece and nephew, who were in the back seat. Despite the overturning truck and the impact with the tree, eight-year-old Grace and her brother, Timothy, who is six, remained in their seats because they were buckled in.
After using a knife to bust out the window, Jessie pulled the two kids from the back seat into the cab and lifted them through the window into the arms of passersby who responded to his calls for help.
All three escaped with a few bruises and scratches.
The truck was totaled in the 2:30 p.m. crash, which happened just three miles from Jessie’s home in Rock Bluff.
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Jessie’s mother, Liberty County Ambulance Director Melissa Peddie, was already having a busy afternoon. At the same time as the crash, she was taking care of a patient with a medical issue as the woman was rushed to the Bristol landing zone to be put on an emergency helicopter to be flown an area hospital.
She was in the ambulance with the patient when she heard the sheriff’s office dispatch alert first responders to a crash with a rollover.
“My heart sank,” she said. The crash happened at Hwy. 12 and Dempsey Barron Road. “I had just left seeing Jessie and my grandbabies at the barber shop and knew they were headed home,” she said.
She was grateful the dispatcher remained on the phone with her until it could be verified that the three kids were not seriously injured. “They’re out of the car, there’s no entrapment, they’re ok,” she was told. Peddie, who had left her car at the ambulance office, said she was getting 
ready to run down the road from the football field to her car when Liberty County Sheriff’s Office Dispatcher Peggy Moore- drove up and took her to the crash site. Peddie’s partner on the ambulance made a quick call and local paramedic John Cessna rushed over to take her place at the launch site.
“Calhoun EMS had all three of my babies in the ambulance,” she said of her arrival at the crash site. “I was able to put eyes and hands on them and see for myself they were all safe and sound, other than some bruises.”
The family then went on to the ER at Calhoun-Liberty Hospital, where Bristol Fire Chief Dale Hobby and his wife were waiting for them. “They came to me at my worst possible hour and stayed with me until they knew that I and the babies were all ok.” She added that they even brought pizza for the kids as they waited for each to be examined for possible injuries.
Although the worst was over, the children were terrified as they waited to be seen. Peddie said the kindness and compassion shown by the ER staff toward her family helped ease their nerves a bit.
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“The truck was six feet in the air when it hit the tree. If they hadn’t been wearing their seatbelts, they’d be dead,” Peddie pointed out. She’s worked a lot of vehicle crashes throughout her career on the ambulance and knows even the smallest crash can have deadly consequences.
Because of her experiences, she said her son is especially cautious about buckling up. Even as a youngster, he’d often remind her to make sure her seatbelt was on even before they drove off. Perhaps she’s shared enough stories of what she’s seen responding at crash sites that the practice simply became second nature for him.
The three had had a good afternoon. Jessie took the kids out to eat, then he took the kids to play at Veterans Memorial Park before getting a quick haircut at the barber shop on CR 12.
They were heading home to Rock Bluff when the truck crashed.
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“The only thing we lost was a truck and I don’t care about that,” Peddie said.
The truck was believed to be in good shape, yet suddenly the vehicle crossed into the oncoming lane and went off the road, she said.
Jessie is doing well now but that night, “he really struggled with what happened,” his mother said. “He said it was like a dream, with the two youngsters crying out for help.” He told her after the air bags deployed, he remembers one of kids screaming, “Help me. I can’t breathe!”
A tool he had just gotten for Christmas came in pretty handy that day. His mother gave him a utility knife that he had wanted, which included a special “seatbelt cutter” that allowed him to break free and get himself as well as the two younger kids out quickly. He had it with him that day and knew what to do with it.
“Buckling up made all the difference between bringing my kid home or taking him to the morgue,” his mother said.
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