“It was a Friday evening, less than 30 minutes before quitting time on a project at this plastics chemical plant between Bishop and Kingsville, Texas. When I went to check on things, I found four insulators working in the pipe rack 75 feet up, and not one of them was tied off or wearing their safety harnesses. I called them down and chewed them out. Then their general foreman walked up to me, and I chewed him out, too. I told them, safety is not an option out here. Not on my watch.

“Later on that evening, it was pouring down rain when I started driving home to Bishop. There was a car maybe 150 yards ahead of me, and I saw the brake lights come on. All of a sudden, I saw an object fly up in the air one way and something big go the other way. I pulled over and got out of my car to check on it, and I saw it was that same general foreman. He was hitchhiking down this dark road. When he got hit, his boots went one way and he went the other. He ended up face down in a chuckhole full of water.

“It took me a while to get him cleaned out to where I could clear his throat and start CPR. I was able to bring him around. Then some guy pulled over and asked if I needed help. I said, ‘Yes sir. I need an ambulance quick.’ About five minutes later the ambulance showed up, and they worked on him a little bit more. He was all crippled up. Honestly, I didn’t think he would make it. I wouldn’t have bet a penny that he was going to survive.

“Well, it was close to two years later when I was siting in my office one day eating lunch. The security officer called and said, ‘There’s a gentleman here to see you.’ So he sends him in. And wouldn’t you know it, it was the general foreman from that job. He had come up there to thank me for saving his life. He didn’t remember much at all from what happened, so I guess someone told him. He had gone through all kinds of medical stuff and rehab. He had problems with his hips and legs, but he was working again for another company. 

“I was with Brown and Root close to 50 years. I traveled all over the world doing OSHA-related work. I saved a lot of lives, either by helping someone directly or through safety people I trained or procedures I put in place. But that’s one of those stories that really sticks with you. That’s one I’ll never forget.”

— Richard, 68

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It’s been a busy week for Angela Franco and her husband, John Gomez. Like countless others around our community, they have rolled up their sleeves — and their pant legs when needed — to help make sure that those in need are safe and well fed.

“I’m a nurse, and a CPR and first aid instructor. I also own a child-care facility in Highlands. So when this all started, I had a natural instinct to help others. It did not feel right to sit at home. Saturday morning my husband and I went out with a friend on his boat. We made it to Meadowlake Village, and we started rescuing people. At one point a lady was showing signs of a heart attack. I went into her home, got her meds and kept her stable. We loaded her into a side-by-side to move her to drier ground, and I stayed with her until first responders got there.

“On Sunday we began cooking for first responders and volunteers. We delivered food to three different fire stations using our cousin’s lifted Jeep to make it through the high water. When we got to the fire station on Garth Road, they were filled with so much joy. I felt blessed to be able to help them.”

After a few more rescues and a close call of their own, they decided that they were better suited to cook than rescue. Their pit has been fired up and going non-stop ever since. They cooked for residents in Pinehurst on Thursday, and they were at The Chute today cooking for those who needed a hot meal.

“On Thursday we were serving a family with small children. I smiled and said, ‘Hi, sweetie,’ to this little girl. She jumped out of her car seat, wrapped her arms around my neck and hugged me so hard. She didn’t want to let go. Her mom said she was so upset because her baby dolls were wet and ruined, and she had nothing to play with. She was too young to understand why.

“Since I run a childcare, I just so happened to have a bag of stuffed animals and puppets, and a baby doll. When I gave the doll to her, the light in her eyes was amazing. It turned out that the doll was exactly like the one she had lost in the flooding. At that point, it all made sense why we were doing what we were doing. My home was not affected by flooding at all, but my heart sure was. Cooking was the best way we knew how to help. We know these families lost everything and were not able to cook, so we stepped in.

“I grew up in this town. This is our home. We’re Baytown strong. And I wanted to teach my kids that this is what we do as Texans.

— Angela Franco

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“I have run 25 marathons and 76 ultra-marathons. As of Jan. 1, including all my races and training, I have run 30,875 miles. But it’s not the long distance that kills you. It’s the short distance.

“I was entered in a 3,000-meter race on June 9, 2012, at Rice University. I had no idea that anything was wrong with me. In January, I had won a U.S.A. Track and Field 100-kilometer race for my age. In February, I did the Rocky Raccoon 100-Mile Trail Run at Huntsville State Park. In March, I won a U.S.A. Track and Field 50-mile mountain race. In April, I ran the Relay for Life here in Baytown. In May, I ran in the Boxrox Marathon in central Texas in 95 degrees on rugged trails. So I survived all of that.

“Then June 9 came, and I was lined up for 3,000 meters. I ran through the finish, then I started walking and cooling down. I don’t remember anything that happened after that. Nothing. I had collapsed and died. My heart was not beating for up to 50 minutes, is what the doctor said.

“John Bryant, a friend of mine on our ExxonMobil track team, was there within one minute to begin doing CPR. He continued until Station 33 arrived from Houston, and they used the paddles to get my heart beating again. My wife met me at the hospital. She felt my ankles and said there was a tiny, little heart beat there. That was about two hours later.

“The doctors decided to put me in a medical coma. By the sixth day, they disconnected the EEG monitor because there was no data coming out of it. On the seventh day, they asked my wife for permission to disconnect me from life support. What she said was, ‘If you do that, he’ll just be on his own.’ So they didn’t do it. And I woke up at 6 o’clock the very next morning.”

— Bob Botto, 67

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• He enjoys running for a cancer-fighting cause
• Chemistry experiment lands him a wife for life

The post Marathoner survives cardiac arrest to run another day appeared first on The Baytown Project.

“It can be pretty chaotic. Like Sunday, my first call was a homicide. There are people on the phone screaming and you’re hearing them talk to EMS and saying, ‘He just stopped breathing. He’s dead.’ Listening on the phone to someone dying is the hardest thing.

“Once, I had a woman just scream and scream, and she’s basically not listening to me or EMS trying to tell her she needs to do CPR on her baby that drowned. She just can’t focus. But while you’re listening to all of that, you have to be the one who remains all calm and soft. Sometimes when you lower your voice, they’ll lower their voice because they’re so scared.

“When you start this job, they immediately throw you in talking to people. There are some who have gotten up and said, ‘I can’t do this. I can’t handle it. It’s too stressful.’ We have chaplains in and out of that communications room all the time asking us, ‘How are you doing? How are you handling that?’

“I don’t believe just anybody can do this job. I don’t even know how I’m able to do it. Maybe it’s because of my military background or that I feel the Lord has put me in a place where he knows I like to help people and he knows I can do it. Because I didn’t think I could ever do something like this.”

— Crystal Keeler

Related:

• 911 dispatcher enjoys doing something selfless

The post Military background prepares her for 911 role appeared first on The Baytown Project.

“I was doing my EMT clinical training with the City of Baytown, and we were at the ambulance center. It was a calm Sunday when we got a call about a rollover accident. It was a possible fatality. When we arrived at the scene, we saw that the body had been ejected about 40 feet from the vehicle. There were a lot of people gathered, and I noticed my brother-in-law and several others I recognized since I was raised in the city. It turned out that the victim was my sister.

“She had a fractured knee, she broke her back and she had a pretty bad skull fracture. I told my paramedic, ‘That’s my sister.’ He’s like, ‘I don’t think she’s going to make it. They called Life Flight, and they’re on the way.’ We met them at Hermann Hospital, and they let me be in the surgery room with her.

“Thanks to God, she survived. As she was recovering, I acted as her nurse. She tells me to this day, ‘You were my angel that day. If it wasn’t for you, I don’t think I would have lived. I knew you were there, so I knew you were going to take care of me.’

“This was in 1999. I was a student at the time. But after that, with all the tragedies I had seen, I decided I did not want to become a doctor. So I became an engineer instead. But I still teach CPR, first aid and AED (automated external defibrillator) on the side. I guess I still have it in me. I love to help people. I feel like if I can help at least one person, then it makes me a better person.”

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