JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Doctors, nurses and staff members at Memorial Hospital’s trauma center were reunited Wednesday night with some of the people whose lives they helped save.
Gabe Reeves, a crash survivor, was presented with a medal. Back in November, the 18-year-old’s tire blew out. His car crashed into a guardrail that crossed the Intracoastal Waterway.
When he climbed out of his window to get out, he fell 80-feet off a bridge.
“I promise I won’t waste a second chance at living a good life,” Reeves told the staff.
Jessica Reeves’ son broke his neck. His spine was shattered. His ribs were broken. A lung was punctured and he had brain hemorrhages.
His prognosis wasn’t good.
A year-and-a-half later, however:
“He is walking, he is talking, he is laughing, he is healing and he definitely has a second chance at life,” she said.
Ian Brasfield knows that he owes his life to a paramedic and the staff at Memorial. He was on a motorcycle in 2019 when he crashed and was run over by two cars on J. Turner Butler Boulevard.
“There is nothing that I could be doing today if it wasn’t for them,” Brasfield said. “It means everything these are the people with me.”