Arvid Simmons knows he’s extremely lucky to be alive after taking a load of buckshot to the upper abdomen two decades ago. But he also realizes that more than luck was involved in his survival.

“I heard the EMS say my blood pressure is zero — zero above zero,” he said during an interview at his home on Burnley Lane last week while recalling the immediate aftermath of the ordeal. The shooting occurred in 1988, but remains vivid in his memory as if it happened yesterday.

“When they got me to Baptist (Hospital), they only gave me a four-percent chance to live,” Simmons, now 68, said of his medical prognosis at the time. After all, pellets from the 16-gauge shotgun had left the victim with two holes in his aorta, according to accounts from Pam Elliott, an AirCare nurse who assisted Simmons.

That is a trauma condition few patients survive, Elliott said, with the aorta being the body’s largest artery.

However, the Mount Airy man is around to tell his story today, partly due to expert medical care he says was received. Simmons also credits something else that has become a driving force in his existence in recent years: the need for lifesaving supplies of blood to be maintained by the American Red Cross.

“When you get to that kind of point, it’s real important that they have blood available for you,” Simmons said of such a medical crisis. In his case, that meant receiving 94 units of blood and blood products as he endured more than eight hours of surgery.

“If it wasn’t available, I wouldn’t have been there (afterward),” he said.

In freely discussing his ordeal today, Simmons wants everyone to realize the vital blood services the Red Cross provides and to donate all they can because people never know when they might face such a need.

Since 2000, the local textile company retiree has been a member of the part-time staff of the local Red Cross because of his desire to give something back to the organization that was instrumental in saving his life. “I am grateful knowing that every day I am also helping to save others.”

Simmons’ work with the Carolinas Blood Region includes making sure blood is collected and transported properly so it can be available to patients in need, said Ashley Mills, recruitment operations supervisor of the Surry County chapter of the Red Cross.

Mills said Simmons also is an avid supporter of a blood drive held regularly at Bannertown Baptist Church, where he is a member. “He is always willing to jump in and help with that drive, from refreshments to donor traffic — anything he can do to help,” the agency official added. “Arvid is a huge asset to the American Red Cross. He is committed to its mission.”

Sharing His Story

Along with his blood-collection efforts, Arvid Simmons serves as a living, walking testimonial to the value of a ready blood supply when it comes to convincing people of the need to donate regularly.

Part of his work with the Red Cross involves telling the story surrounding his wounding to others statewide. “I’ve spoke about my accident at every one of the centers,” Simmons said of Red Cross facilities in such locations as Wilmington, Durham and Asheville. “My main point is to encourage people to give blood.”

When folks hear a man who owes his life to it remind them of the need to give, it can make quite an impression, Mills said. “Arvid has been responsible for a lot of people coming to blood drives,” she added.

Simmons’ story of survival begins on Nov. 24, 1988, Thanksgiving Day, when he went rabbit hunting in the Slate Mountain area near Flat Rock. Simmons, who was among a group of family members and friends, was continuing a 43-year Thanksgiving tradition that began with hunting trips with his dad at age 5.

As the men hunted in a remote section about 11:30 a.m., Simmons was hit in the right upper abdomen with an accidental shot fired by a friend. He shouted to the others that he had been wounded, took a few steps, then collapsed. It would be revealed in the operating room that the buckshot blast had left him with five holes in his small bowel as well as passing through the gallbladder and penetrating his aorta.

“It was just a complete accident, and we stayed friends,” Simmons said of the man firing the errant shot, who since has died.

The injuries it caused would be considered serious under any scenario, but the situation was especially grave due to their location deep in the forest.

However, a series of fortunate events unfolded which Simmons credits for allowing him to survive the shooting, along with the top-notch medical care and blood supply.

One became apparent soon after he was shot. It just so happened that there was a house across a field from where the group was hunting. One of the men in the party ran to the house and encountered a man named Phil Welch, who was there working on his grandmother’s well pump. Welch then called for help.

Another lucky development involved Surry EMS Director John Shelton being just two to three miles away, where he was eating a Thanksgiving meal with his family. Upon hearing that a man was unconscious from a hunting accident, Shelton took immediate steps to have a helicopter ambulance respond to the scene from Winston-Salem.

Fast-acting rescue squad members who reached the victim just ahead of Shelton inserted a breathing tube and intravenous lines and applied special trousers designed to keep the blood in the upper part of the body by compressing the lower portion.

Meanwhile, the helicopter team realized it was headed to such a remote area it had to rely on forestry maps as guidance. But another key to Simmons’ survival emerged when the pilot became aware that he had hunted in the same area and was familiar with the terrain.

Once the patient was aboard, the helicopter made the flight from Flat Rock to Winston-Salem in 13 minutes, according to Simmons, who drifted in and out of consciousness along the way and was able to mount only a faint pulse. The victim later could remember details such as having the breathing tube inserted, which he said took his breath away at first, and the pain of the special trousers being blown up around his legs.

Less than an hour elapsed from the time Simmons was shot to when he entered an operating room at the Winston-Salem hospital. “And they lost me twice on the operating table,” Simmons said. He was told by Dr. Wayne Meredith, head of the hospital’s trauma unit, that only one person in a million survives the type of injuries he had.

The local man was placed in intensive care after the surgery and eventually improved to the point where he was discharged from the hospital on Christmas Eve of 1988 — 30 days after being shot.

Simmons later hosted a pig-pickin’ for all the emergency workers and other personnel whom he credited with saving his life. “I tried to pay them back,” he said.

Today, his health is excellent, Simmons and his wife Joyce say, and in addition to church activities the two stay busy with gardening and other projects at their home on Burnley Lane, where many varieties of roses abound.

Simmons has not been hunting since that near-tragic event in the late 1980s, although he has continued to raise beagles, a favored breed of rabbit hunters.

And the trauma survivor remains thankful that he is able to be here today with the help of the American Red Cross, but believes there is a need to constantly remind the public of why blood donations are so important.

“With summer coming up, everybody’s on vacation and with traffic and all, there’s going to be more accidents and there’s going to be more demand for blood,” Simmons said.

With Surry Countians being known for their readiness to help others, Mills, the Red Cross official, said that giving blood is one of the best ways to do that. “It’s volunteer work you can do laying down,” she said.

Arvid Simmons, meanwhile, can now reflect on what happened to him philosophically. “Well, I think it was a lesson learned — you really value life a lot more, and it makes you realize you take a lot for granted,” he said.

Before being shot, Simmons added, “I didn’t think about blood products.”

Contact Tom Joyce at tjoyce@mtairynews.com or at 719-1924.