Quick response by members of the Smithville-DeKalb County Rescue Squad, DeKalb EMS, and DeKalb Volunteer Firefighters may have saved the life of a Franklin man who was seriously injured after going off the side of a steep hill on a trackhoe in the Puckett’s Point area Wednesday night.
The mishap occurred in the area of Jordan Lane, a private drive off Puckett’s Point Road. The operator of the trackhoe, Brad Jackson of Franklin suffered internal injuries, a broken back, and a fractured skull. He was airlifted from Highway 56 and Ponder Road to Vanderbilt Hospital in Nashville.
“He was driving a little trackhoe. A mini excavator. A rental machine. He was trying to clear out and widen this old road and it got dark on him but he kept working with lights. Some way or another he got off the edge of the road and went almost straight off over bluffs, trees, and just terrible terrain. The trackhoe rolled approximately 175 feet and lodged up against a tree upside down. The cab door of the trackhoe was ripped off and he was thrown out about 100 or 125 feet down the hill,” said Joe Johnson, member of the Smithville-DeKalb County Rescue Squad.
“Two firemen got there first. They tied a rope they had and went down to him and stayed with him. I went down on a rope to him and then other members of the Rescue Squad arrived maybe three minutes later. Kristie Johnson, member of the ambulance service and Rescue Squad, happened to be on the ambulance. She has had rope training so she went down to him with a rope. She immediately gave him something for pain and an IV while we were getting equipment down to him. She also called for an air ambulance to land at the top of the hill on another road. Her response and training probably saved his life. We got him on a backboard and in a stokes basket and then using our rope system and rope team we brought him back to the top of the hill. We got him out fast,” said Johnson.
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