Northampton Teen Meets Lifeguards Who Saved His Life In Jamaica

NORTHAMPTON, PA — Six weeks after Northampton resident Jordan Schuch was rescued by a pair of lifeguards in Jamaica, he and his family were able to thank the young men in person.

Their path to a town council meeting at the Jersey Shore where the lifeguards, Liam and Sean Rea, were being honored was far from direct, however. "Amazing" is the word most have applied, in fact. And very emotional for both families.

It started April 7 at Margaritaville Caribbean, a water park in Montego Bay. The Schuchs were in Jamaica at the end of a week-long mission trip. The Reas were enjoying the last days of a spring break vacation.

Jordan, who will be 14 next month, and his cousin Josiah were climbing on a giant inflatable iceberg at the park. Tim Schuch, Jordan's father, was nearby, trying to give Jordan a leg up to climb up to the top so he could jump off, because crowds were making it a bit difficult for the kids to climb.

Tim's next memory is of being underwater, trying to figure out what happened, and trying to find Jordan.

Liam and Sean Rea were floating nearby and had seen the situation unfold: A man climbing above Jordan and Tim had lost his footing and fallen, hitting Jordan and Tim on the way down. Jordan was knocked unconscious and was floating face-down in deep water 100 yards from shore. Tim, who also had taken a blow to the head, was dazed.

Liam, 19, and Sean, 17, who work as lifeguards for Brick Township, acted immediately, according to Jeff Batt, a Jersey City fire chief and Rea family friend whose family was vacationing with the Reas.

Tim says he remembers seeing his son face-down in the water and turning him over. The next thing he heard was a young man saying, "I'm a beach lifeguard. Give me the boy and I'll get him in."

"There's a lot I don't remember, but I remember that clearly," Tim said Monday in a phone interview.

The voice belonged to Liam Rea. He and Sean supported Jordan, ensuring he wouldn't inhale water and stabilizing Jordan's neck in case he had suffered a spinal injury, Jeff Batt said. They swam Jordan back to the shore then helped put him on a backboard so he could be lifted from the water safely.

As they were putting him on the backboard, Jordan regained consciousness and became combative because he was confused about what was happening. "Liam and Sean talked to the patient, letting him know he was safe and calmed him down," Jeff Batt said.

Kim Rea, who was sitting on the shore, called 911. Once Jordan was safely loaded in, the families parted company. Later, both found themselves wishing they had exchanged contact information, both said.

Once they got home, Tim and Jen Shcuch both tried to see if there were any reports about Jordan's accident. "I was searching news sites in Jamaica but there wasn't anything," Tim said. As their attention turned to helping Jordan recover — he suffered a severe concussion and chipped nine teeth — finding reports about the incident went to the back burner.

Until May 21, that is. Jen Schuch says she was home from work and just bored when she decided she'd try to Google a photo of the giant inflatable iceberg. They had told friends and family about the accident, but struggled to describe just what the inflatable looked like. Jen also was trying to see if there had been any other accidents as a result of it.

With a little time on her hands, Jen Schuch plugged in "iceberg Margaritaville Jamaica" and up popped a photo of the inflatable. It was the headline, however, that got her attention: "Local Brick Lifeguards save Child while on vacation in Jamaica."

"I opened (the story) and it was us," she said. The article was a post on Patch by Donna Batt, sharing the account by her husband, Jeff, a Jersey City fire chief, of the rescue efforts of Liam and Sean Rea. Jen said she called Tim at work and read him the article to Tim at work, then showed it to him later that evening. She soon found the Patch follow-up article, "Brick Teen Lifeguards Save Child's Life In Jamaica" and other reports on the accident.

"The thing that blew me away was seeing the photo of Jordan strapped to the backboard in the water," Tim Schuch said. He is in the photo, as is Jordan's sister, Maya, 12. "There was no doubt it was us."

Jen Schuch then tracked down Jeff Batt through Facebook. As the two traded messages the following day, Batt told her the Rea boys were being honored that night, May 22, at the Brick Township Council meeting.

"I called Tim at work again, and said 'We have to go,' " Jen said. Jordan, who is still working through concussion issues, was on the fence about going, but Tim and Maya were eager, and Jordan decided he wanted to meet the young men who had rescued him.

"Even if Jordan had wanted to stay home, we (he and Jen) were going," Tim said. "We had to say thank you."

The Jamaica mission

The Schuch family had been in Jamaica participating in a mission trip with Won By One to Jamaica, an organization that is focused on helping the residents of Harmons Valley, a poor area on the southern portion of the island about three hours from Montego Bay. The trip had been organized by Tim's sister, Wendy Hall, who was traveling with her family.

The group of 50 people were spending a week building homes and making connections with the people who lived there. Wendy coordinates trips for Won By One, arranging flights and transportation on the island to assisting with issues that arise. It was a trip the Schuchs had been wanting to make for a while, Tim said.

"It was an amazing experience," Tim said. "Completely mindblowing." The extreme poverty was humbling, but what stuck with them most was the time spent at an infirmary, which was home to people with mental and physical disabilities, people who were elderly, and people who were ill. "These were people who had no one to care for them and could not care for themselves," he said. They were encouraged to talk with the residents of the infirmary and get to know the people. The conditions were so stark and the infirmities were in some cases so significant — there were people who could not walk who got around by pulling themselves across the floor, and others who would be picked up, carried outside and laid on the ground so they could get some sunshine — that they make most people turn away.

"We've been to nursing homes before," Tim said of volunteer work they've done in the past. "This was like nothing we've ever seen." But even the kids wholeheartedly embraced it. "I saw Maya putting lotion on the hands of an old woman who had trouble doing it for herself," Jen said. "When you see your children helping others like that, it's an incredible feeling."

The iceberg

After spending a week with the people of the Harmons Valley, the Schuchs and the rest of the Team Church group headed out, leaving behind all of their clothing except for what they were wearing.

"That's a requirement of the mission," Tim said, "that you leave the clothing, your extra shoes, behind." They each brought two 50-pound suitcases each on the trip, full of items including medical supplies, personal care items like shampoo and toothpaste, and various other items that fill a thrift shop in the village, where the residents can buy items at a very low cost. The money goes to the continuing mission of Won by One, which operates year-round in the village.

The group had a day to spend in Montego Bay, relaxing after the six days of hard work. The day built into the schedule also ensures they are not hampered by travel delays on their return from Harmons to the city.

Jen said she was relaxing at the hotel after lunch with some of the friends she'd made on the trip. Tim, Jordan and Maya, along with Wendy and her family, had gone to Margaritaville so the kids could hang out and have some fun.

"I was sitting here and all of a sudden I get a tap on the shoulder," Jen said. A young man sent by Wendy was telling her she should go over to the inflatables area. "He said, 'Jordan was OK, but Tim's sister wanted me to come get you,' " Jen said.

As she walked over to the inflatables area, an ambulance passed her. "I didn't think about it until I got there," Jen said, and said that's when she started to panic, because she realized the ambulance was there for Jordan.

They went to Hospiten, a private hospital in Montego Bay, where Jordan underwent a CAT scan, a neck X-ray and was diagnosed with a concussion. Jordan had three big lumps on his head, Tim said, two on the front of his head and one in the back, which he suspects happened as a result of Jordan's head hitting his. Tim refused treatment, "even though they kept asking me if I was OK," because he wasn't willing to leave his son alone.

As the Jamaican hospital treated Jordan, Tim said, they began talking about keeping him overnight and declaring him unfit to fly. It was an option the Schuchs were unwilling to entertain, partly because delaying their flight a day would have meant a 20-hour flight with three connections to get back to Philadelphia, delaying their ability to get Jordan seen by a neurologist. The plane tickets would have cost $1,700 each.

"Wendy was searching options and because it was spring break, there weren't many," Tim said. Determined to get Jordan home on their already booked flight and uncomfortable with the resistance they were getting from the hospital administration, they hatched a plan. "We had our rapid extraction team," Tim said with a laugh: His sister had the bus driver from Won for One ready, and they were prepared to say they were flying out of a different airport three hours away to make sure they wouldn't get stopped at the gate.

"We ran into the ER doctor and the hospital's head doctor and they said he was able to fly," Tim said. "That made me comfortable about putting him on a plane."

Their travel insurance company also was involved, looking at the medical care Jordan was receiving and ready to airlift him out if necessary, Tim said. "As nice as they were at that hospital, they don't have what we have available here." There was no neurologist at the hospital, and the pediatric surgeon was three hours away. "We could've had him home and seen at CHOP (Children's Hospital of Philadelphia)" in the time it would have taken for the pediatric surgeon to get to the Jamaican hospital, he said.

Still, getting out of Jamaica was a bit nervewracking. Jordan's sneakers got left behind at Margaritaville, and he went to the airport wearing the free cardboard slip-on shoes from the hospital because they were all they had. "We laugh about it now," Jen said.

The accident

Tim Schuch says there are still parts of the accident he doesn't fully remember.

"When we walked into the (council) meeting, it was overwhelming, because I didn't really remember who had helped us," he said.

He remembers helping Jordan as Jordan tried to climb the iceberg, and the next thing he knew, "I was smashed in the head and I was underwater."

"My first thought was, what happened," Tim said. The next: "Where's Jordan?"

He believes the man who fell hit Jordan in the head with his head or elbow, causing two bumps on the front of his head, and in the process knocked Jordan's head into Tim's head, giving Jordan a third bump on the back of his head. Josiah, Tim's nephew, also was brushed as the man fell, but didn't suffer any serious injuries, Tim said.

Wendy, a longtime swim coach, had seen what happened and dove into the water too, and as Jordan regained consciousness and became combative, she was able to tell Tim that Jordan was conscious, breathing and moving. As they got Jordan out of the water — after taking what seemed like forever to find the backboard — it was Wendy who told the ambulance driver to take Jordan to Hospiten, a private facility, which was significantly better than the public hospitals. Wendy also handed Tim his wallet. "That was fortunate, because I had to pay $5,000 up front for them to treat Jordan," he said.

With Jordan on his way to the hospital, Wendy tried to gather contact information from witnesses. Later she realized she had never gotten the names or information for Jeff Batt and Liam and Sean, he said.

Since they got home, Jordan has been working to recover from the severe concussion. He missed the flag football season and much of his basketball season, only getting cleared to return to sports two weeks ago. The recovery will be an ongoing process, Tim said. Jordan has lingering effects on his ability to concentrate when he's studying and maintain focus on his school responsibilities — something that had never been an issue for the honor-roll student. "This has opened my eyes to the whole concussion issue," Tim said. "The brain has to relearn a lot of things."

And the Schuchs have been struggling to get the insurance companies and Margaritaville to cover the costs of Jordan's care. Tim said it's been a constant circle of finger-pointing, and with Margaritaville, they stopped taking his calls. At one point he was communicating with the Margaritaville vice president by text message, but the man had stopped answering his texts.

That changed when Jen Schuch found the articles about the rescue.

"I texted the photo of Jordan on the backboard in the water to him," Tim said, along with an additional message telling the vice president about the news coverage in the area. They finally received a formal response from Margaritaville over the weekend, saying they were looking into the issue with their insurance company.

"We have $12,000 in bills; all we want is for them the do the right thing," so the insurance companies will cover Jordan's care, Tim said.

Meeting the Reas

"It's really an amazing story," Jen Schuch said of the events of a week ago, that brought her family together with the Reas. "All we knew was they were Americans. We didn't know their names."

Finding the articles about the rescue and learning the Reas were so close by — "I'm from New Jersey and I kind of knew the area, so I knew they were only about an hour and 15 minutes away," Jen said — is a confirmation to them of divine intervention.

"Only God could have put all this together," Jen said.

The flurry of Facebook messages with Jeff Batt included Kim Rea's phone number. Tuesday afternoon, just hours before the Brick Township Council meeting, Jen called her.

"Donna Batt ( Jeff's wife) was blowing up my phone all day with messages" about Jen trying to reach her about coming to the council meeting, but Kim, who owns The Waxing Studio in Brick, had been so busy with clients getting waxed for beach season that she hadn't looked at her phone.

"I was driving out to pick up my mother so she could be at the (council) meeting when my Bluetooth rings," Kim Rea said. "There's this woman on the other end and she says, 'I'm Jen, the mother of the boy your sons saved. We heard about the meeting; we're coming to be there.' "

"I couldn't believe it," Kim said. "I started crying and Jen started crying."

The Schuchs drove out to Brick from Bucks County the moment Tim got off work from his job as an electrical superintendent for PFK Mark III, a large construction company in Newtown, PA.

At the meeting, Councilwoman Andrea Zapcic described the events of April 7, praising Liam and Sean and also talking about the preparation of Brick's lifeguards under Recreation Director Dan Santaniello and Beach Captain Donovan Brown.

Tim then spoke.

"I just want to express my heartfelt gratitude to the young men here tonight, to those who had a hand in training them, and their families for raising such fine young men, who put themselves at risk for someone they did not know," he said. "I'm very grateful for what you did for my family."

"When they asked me to speak at the meeting, how could I not?" Tim said. Afterward, the families went out to dinner to get to know each other. "It was if we had known each other for a while," Jen said. "After the initial nervousness, it was all just really comfortable."

The boys were at ease and laughing and talking, both Jen and Kim said. Jen said it was great to see how Liam and Sean were with Jordan, who turns 14 on June 5, despite the age difference.

"It was very emotional," Kim Rea said. "The boys had been saying all along 'This is no big deal, this is what we're trained to do,' but meeting Jordan put a face to the boy they saved. It's taken it to a whole new level."

Connecting with the Reas was a positive ending to an incident that threatened to overwhelm the memories of the mission experience. "Jordan really looks up to them (Liam and Sean)," Jen said.

In the days since then, Jen said she's learned friends had seen the Patch follow-up article interviewing Liam and Sean, but never connected it to Jordan's accident. The response to everyone connecting now has been the same over and over: It's amazing.

"You see sometimes people posting on Facebook, 'hey, so-and-so helped me out, does anyone know who they are,' but the fact she found me because of that photo and story is just amazing," Kim said.

"They (the Reas) could have been from anywhere in the country, but they're here," Jen said. But she and Tim both firmly believe it was divine intervention: "Now that all this has happened, we're just amazed at how God always knows what's going on."

"Having this as the final chapter after that (the accident) puts the trip back in a positive light," Tim said.

Main photo: Liam Rea, Jordan Schuch and Sean Rea, after the Brick Township Council meeting, photo by Jen Schuch.