When Every Second Counts
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First responders work around the wreckage of a Cessna that crashed Saturday afternoon near the Water Valley Municipal Airport runway.
DAVE’S WORLD
By David Howell
When Yalobusha County Emergency Management Agency Director Stewart Spence told me that Saturday’s plane crash was the third one he had responded to in Yalobusha County, I knew immediately the other two he was talking about.
The first was near Oakland in 2009. I don’t remember as much about that one. Jack Gurner took the pictures and did the reporting for the Herald.
But I remember Dr. Ken Byrd.
Byrd’s plane went down near Tillatoba in 2012, and I remember the all-night search that followed. First responders and volunteers spent the night combing through the heavily wooded area looking for the downed plane.
At one point that night, searchers were within about 100 yards of it. But in the darkness and thick woods, they couldn’t see it.
It wasn’t until daylight the next morning that a pilot from Grenada flew over the area and almost immediately spotted the wreckage.
Byrd had survived the crash and spent the night badly injured and trapped inside his plane.
I also remember that many months later, Dr. Byrd came back to Water Valley to thank the first responders who helped save his life.
What I know about all three of these crashes is that the first responders in Yalobusha County are second to none.
And from Water Valley Fire Chief Mark McGavock and Stewart’s accounts, the effort Saturday afternoon was amazing. The call went out, and four minutes later Big Blue, the Water Valley Fire Department’s fire truck, was on the scene.
Four minutes.
The full-time firefighters rolled from the station, with the dedicated volunteers right behind them.
The wreckage wasn’t easy to get to. Dr. Harry “Lee” Richardson Jr. had crashed beyond the airport fence in thick vegetation, and getting him out would require a lot more than simply pulling up a fire truck and going to work.
But everybody found a job.
Some worked to free Richardson from the mangled Cessna. Others cleared a path through the thick vegetation so equipment could reach the crash site. Others handled the countless jobs that had to be done.
And about 40 minutes after they arrived, Richardson was out of that airplane.
That’s pretty remarkable.
Mark explained that it seemed like everybody on the scene knew exactly what they needed to do. I think that is worth pointing out because plane crashes aren’t exactly routine calls for our first responders in Yalobusha County. They haven’t spent their careers cutting pilots out of crashed airplanes. But they have spent years responding to wrecks, fires and emergencies where somebody is depending on them to figure out a problem quickly.
There is an expertise that comes with that experience.
You learn how to use the equipment. You learn how to work together. You learn how to look at a situation you may have never seen before and apply what you already know.
And most importantly, you learn how to take care of business when somebody’s life depends on it.
We named a lot of those involved in our story this week. I’m sure there were a few we left out.
Some of the tedious details of exactly who did what are hard to pin down. There’s a pretty good reason for that. Everybody on the scene had a job to do, and they obviously weren’t taking notes. They were too busy trying to save a man’s life.
That’s something that has stood out to me in covering emergencies in Yalobusha County for more than 20 years.
The people who respond aren’t looking for recognition. A lot of them are volunteers. They have jobs, families, supper on the table, grass that needs cutting and a hundred other things they could be doing.
But when that radio goes off, they show up.
And not just once.
These are the same guys and gals who show up time and time again. They show up for the house fire at 2 in the morning. They show up for the wreck in the pouring rain. They show up when somebody is lost in the woods.
And Saturday afternoon, they showed up for a plane crash. About 40 minutes later, Dr. Richardson was out. That says a whole lot for our first responders.
Dr. Ken Byrd survived this 2012 plane crash near Tillatoba after spending the night seriously injured and trapped in his Cessna 210. His injuries forced him to retire as an OBGYN physician. He returned to Water Valley two years after the crash to thank first responders for helping save his life.
