Mondee Tilley/The News
Ron Haynes, right, touches his chest where he received an electrical shock on Wednesday that stopped his heart for 12 minutes. He and his lifelong friend, Scottie Wolfe, Mount Airy Fire Department engineer, recount the events of that fateful day recently. Wolfe was the first responder on the scene and saved his friend.
Haynes, 34, of Mount Airy, was working on a job site at 907 Oak Grove Church Road, pouring a concrete garage floor for Hawks Concrete, when he plugged in a drop cord. He was holding the electrical box at chest level when he pushed in the plug, receiving an electrical shock that dropped him to his knees and rendered him clinically dead. A co-worker and friend, Justin Freeman, saw what happened and pulled the cord to get the box off Haynes’ chest. A jolt of electricity ran through Freeman’s body as well. As Freeman called 911 for help, two co-workers attempted CPR on Haynes.
Scotty Wolfe, an engineer with the Mount Airy Fire Department, was off duty on Wednesday, having finished his shift at the fire department earlier that morning. He went home and was on his way back to Mount Airy to run some errands when the call was dispatched. He turned around and got to the scene as quickly as he could.
“I usually let the volunteer departments handle the calls because I didn’t have the equipment with me, but for some reason I turned around and responded to the call. When I got there, I saw the guys around him trying to get him to come to. I checked for a pulse, checked to see if he was breathing and I didn’t see none of that, so I started CPR,” said Wolfe, remembering the events of that day.
Wolfe said it was at least four or five minutes into the call before someone said his friend’s name, that’s when he got a whole new perspective on the call. He had not recognized him, he said, because a trauma such as this often causes the person to turn blue, taking on an entirely different appearance.
“My heart kind of dropped, my adrenaline really went to flowing. I started working harder,” said Wolfe.
Surry County Assistant Fire Marshal Jason Burkholder arrived at the scene with an Automatic External Defibrillator. The two men administered a shock to restart his heart and it worked. Wolfe felt a faint pulse and Haynes started breathing on his own. That was at 12:18, 12 minutes after Haynes’ heart had stopped.
Haynes was taken by Surry County paramedics to Northern Hospital, was stabilized, then transferred to Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center. He said he was blind when he first woke up, which is a symptom of an electrical shock. He said his memory also is fuzzy, but doctors told him that would come back with time. He was released from Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center Thursday afternoon with a new lease on life. On Friday afternoon, talking about his ordeal, he said his chest felt like an elephant had stepped on him.
The incident occurred when he was trying to plug in a fan to dry a shady spot on the fresh concrete. The only memory he has of the incident is plugging in the cord for the fan, then falling down on an I-bolt. That’s when it all when black, he said.
“I told Scottie today, that I wouldn’t be here without him,” said Haynes.
Haynes will celebrate his 34th birthday on Sunday and he and his wife Deanne will celebrate their wedding anniversary on August 23. They have a 4-year-old son, Braxton.
Wolfe said when he is at work at the fire department, he mostly helps strangers. But in this case, he was able to save someone he’d known his whole life.
“He was one of my best friends growing up and we hung together as teenagers. After it was done, the emotion just ran all over me, because he’s got a 4-year-old son at home like I’ve got. It definitely took an emotional toll on me until we finally got the call that he was going to make it,” said Wolfe.
“People say it’s a ‘Save,’ something you get a certificate for, but it’s not that, I don’t do it for that reason. It’s just the fact that he’s back and I get to have a friend hopefully for the rest of my life. That meant more to me than any piece of paper or any recognition that I’ll ever get for it.”
“It’s not every day that you get thanked for doing you job. He called me to thank me, that’s the first time I’ve ever been thanked for doing it. Also, you don’t get the chance to see the person again,” said Wolfe.
Wolfe has been in the fire service for the past 14 years. He was a volunteer with Skull Camp Volunteer Fire Department for eight of those years.
Wolfe said he still has lingering anxiety about that day.
“What if I hadn’t saved him? I could have walked in and seen his family without him. That little boy would have grew up without a daddy. I know what my children mean to me,” Wolfe said. “I enjoy helping people and this time and just luckily I got to help one of my friends and not a stranger.”
Both men said they believe God played a role in saving Haynes’ life.
Wolfe said being a fireman is not all about the 24-hour shifts spent at the fire station. He said it’s a 24-hour a day, 7-day a week job.
This summer while at Myrtle Beach, S.C., on vacation a woman started having a heart attack during dinner one night. He stayed with her until the local authorities could arrive on the scene.
“We are always on duty,” Wolfe said. “It’s not just a job, it’s a lifestyle.”
Mount Airy Fire Chief Zane Poindexter said he is proud of Wolfe’s efforts that day.
“It’s wonderful that not only can we provide lifesaving services within the city, but we can provide it to county residents as well. A lot of our personnel live out in the county. We can help out everywhere we go,” said Poindexter. “It just makes me proud as a fire chief to know that we are willing to help anybody at any time,” said Poindexter.
Contact Mondee Tilley at mtilley@mtairynews.com or at 719-1930.
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