Cherokee Firefighters Save Veteran's Life; Hospital Honors

CHEROKEE COUNTY, GA — Two Cherokee County firefighters saved the life of a local veteran multiple times in three days and were recently honored for it.

On May 9, Cherokee County Station 7 had already been called twice to this same address, Firefighter Reece Young said.

"Once we got to the scene, we found out that the patient was a veteran, and he was laying in bed," Young said. "We also found out that he was diabetic and had taken a whole vial of insulin. We checked his sugar and it showed that it was dangerously low.”

Young got the man to agree to go to the hospital to see what was happening and to get some help.

The patient was loaded into an ambulance and firefighters worked to get his sugar levels back to a normal range, but not before another scare.

"Once we got his sugar levels up, I noticed that he still didn’t show any signs of improvement, Young said. "We did other tests to see if he had a stroke and the results of the tests came back positive."

The firefighters decided to take the man to Wellstar Kennestone Hospital. Firefighters continued to check his sugar levels as they were traveling to the hospital.

Once firefighters arrived, the hospital staff was still uncertain if the patient had a stroke, but, after further testing, it was discovered that the firefighters were correct with their assessment of the patient.

Then three days later, the firefighters received another call to the same address and saw the patient sitting up and determined he did have a stroke.

Jennifer Jones, EMS Coordinator for Wellstar Kennestone Hospital, said that she was impressed with the firefighters.

“You did a wonderful job of getting us the information to help us know what was going on with the patient,” Jones said .

Jones and Janie Hatch, the Stroke Coordinator for the hospital, presented Reece and Cody James, who was also on the call, with a “Challenge” coin from Wellstar Kennestone Hospital for a job well done.