DeBerry Wins Statewide Award
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It’s been almost a year since we met John Buckley during one of life’s clarifying moments.
We were going about our everyday activities, Dec. 23, 2011, at the Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman when our paths crossed with Buckley’s. He was at our offices delivering a load of newsprint with American Fast Freight when an accident happened that severed his arm a few inches below his right elbow.
We shared the story in the next edition of the Frontiersman. We remember clearly his mother’s tears of joy and gratitude that she had spent Christmas with her son in the hospital instead of making his funeral arrangements. Doctors at Mat-Su Regional Medical Center told the family then that our staff members’ quick response to Buckley’s traumatic injury surely saved his life.
That sentiment was seconded nine months later when we crossed paths with Bill Mackreth, the first responder on the scene that day. He contacted our office back in August looking for the guy who put his belt on Buckley’s arm as a tourniquet that day.
That man is Frontiersman Photo Editor Robert DeBerry. Also on the ground in the snow saving Buckley’s life were Doris Armstrong and Laura Cox.
“It is extremely rare that a tourniquet is needed, and the vast majority I have seen are ones that bystanders have applied needlessly,” Mackreth wrote in an email. “This was different. Had it not been promptly applied, Mr. Buckley may well not have survived.”
Based on his life-saving actions, Mackreth nominated DeBerry for the 2012 Governor’s Consumer/Citizen Award given out annually at the Alaska Emergency Medical Services Symposium to “a person who, not in the regular line of duty, performs life-saving, limb-saving or medical techniques in a medical emergency.” In an Anchorage ceremony Saturday night, DeBerry was named this year’s award winner.
While we are proud and humbled by the way our staff responded to Buckley’s emergency, Mackreth’s praise clarified for us what had happened that day last year.
“They didn’t hesitate to act in a situation that would be enormously intimidating for most people. They kept their heads enough to act correctly, despite the pressure and the strangeness of the situation. And Mr. DeBerry didn’t let the likelihood of getting blood on him slow his response. They almost certainly saved Mr. Buckley’s life.”
Please join us in congratulating DeBerry and his family for earning this statewide recognition.