Faulkner
Member
Mrs. Faulkner and I do our Christmas Shopping early. Like, really early. Usually by late August or early September we are done with 95% of our Christmas shopping for our grown children and the two grandkids. It’s also tradition that we have our family Christmas celebration and meal at our home. We have to work it around the schedule of our oldest son and daughter-in-law’s large family, but we always get it worked out. This year, we get the whole family on Christmas Day.
I had taken a few days off for the holidays. I got up early Christmas Eve morning and started making final preparations for Christmas morning arrivals. Making sure we have plenty of firewood in the wood box and bringing in a few extra chairs around the table. I do most of the cooking on the smoker for our noon time feast and on Christmas morning Mrs. Faulkner will get up to fix the grandkids favorite sausage balls for breakfast.
About 9:30 Christmas Eve morning Mrs. Faulkner kind of surprises me with a request, “can you make a run to town? I have a short list of things we need, you can probably get everything at Mr. Mackey’s store.” She handed me a list with 7 or 8 items.
I said, “No kidding? I was in town yesterday!”
She gave me the squint eye look, “I didn’t realize I needed this stuff until this morning. If you will get a move on you can be there and back in no time. Take Daisy with you, she’ll enjoy the ride”
Well, I wasn’t looking forward to going to town on Christmas Eve and having to deal with all the last minute shoppers and corresponding traffic in town, but she’s right, if I have to go I might as well go get it over with.
I strapped on my Glock 23 and grabbed my coat and headed for the door. I opened the front door and saw Daisy was lounging on a mat on the front porch. “Let’s go girl, we’re going to town,” I told her. She jumped up and headed for the truck.
Mrs. Faulkner came to the door and shouted out to me, “y’all don’t dilly dally. Get the stuff and get back. I need you to get a box out of the attic for me when you get back.” I gave her a thumbs up.
With Daisy loaded up in her insulated carrier in the back we took off down the drive, hung and right on the county road and headed to town. After a few miles we came to the main two lane highway that takes us into town. Yep, as I figured, traffic was a little heavier this morning and it took me a bit longer to find a gap in the traffic to make the turn onto the highway. From here it’s about 20 minutes to town.
Fortunately, Mackey’s Hardware & General Store is not far into town. As we pulled into the gravel parking lot I noticed it was full. I found one of the few places left to park, got out and went around back to let Daisy out. Daisy and Mr. Mackey are buddies and he’s always glad to see her and giver a treat from the jar under the counter. When we went inside Daisy headed straight to the counter where Mr. Mackey was checking out someone at the register. Daisy went up and sat in front of the counter, Mr. Mackey looked over the counter at her and said, “have a seat Daisy and I’ll be right with you.” She waited patiently until he was finished, then he reached under the counter and got a treat from the jar and came around the counter and knelt down and gave her the treat and some petting.
I had gathered my few items from Mrs. Faulkner list and was at the counter to check out in short order. “Has it been busy all morning like this,” I asked Mr. Mackey.
“Yep,” he said, “ever since I opened up. Yesterday I was worried I’d bought too many Christmas trees this year, but I think I’m down to just a few and they’ll be gone by noon.”
He bagged up my items asked if I had any more shopping to do in town. “No sir,” I replied. “This is it and we’re headed back home. Merry Christmas Mr. Mackey.”
“You too Faulkner . . . see ya Daisy!”
I got Daisy loaded back up in the truck, backed out of the spot and pulled up to the highway to retrace the route home. Although there is no chance of a white Christmas in the Ozarks this year there is a bit of chill in the air and I have the local radio station playing Christmas music on the radio kind of stirring the holiday mood. We had traveled to within about 5 minutes of my turn off onto the county road when I noticed an oncoming car wasn’t tracking down the highway properly. I eased off the accelerator and as it went by I could see some commotion between the driver and passenger in the front seat. I looked into my rearview after it passed and I saw the car veer onto the shoulder and abruptly stop.
“Well, that’s just dandy,” I thought.
I slowed down and found a gap in the oncoming traffic and did a U-turn and headed back in the direction of the car. I reached over into my go-bag in the passenger seat and grabbed my handheld radio and turned it on. By then I’d pulled over and stopped behind the blue Toyota Camry with out of state plates.
“Unit 4 to S.O.”
“Go ahead Unit 4.”
“S.O., I am POV and have pulled over behind a motorist who has stopped on U.S. Highway 65 near Pea Vine Creek with unknown trouble. Could you send a marked unit in my direction?’
“10-4 Unit 4.”
“Unit 16 to S.O., I copied Unit 4’s traffic. I about 5 minutes away.”
“10-4 Unit 16.”
I don’t have blue lights on my personal owned truck so I hit the hazard button and got out, grabbing my badge clipped on the sun visor as I went and clipped it on my jacket. I stood behind my open door for a moment to ascertain what exactly was going on. I could see a lot of moving around in the front seat but not really tell what was happening. I walked up to the front of my truck, then eased over to the passenger side and when I got up to where I could see inside the back seat I saw young boy around 5 or 6 years old strapped in, then I could see an elderly man slumped over from behind the steering wheel and a frantic elderly lady shaking him and talking to him. I tapped on the window and as she turned to look at me I showed her my badge.
“Thank the good Lord, I think he’s having a heart attack!”
I opened the passenger side door and reached in across the lady and checked for a pulse . . . I couldn’t feel one.
“Ma’am, I need you to get out right now!”
As she scooted out I pulled out the handheld radio in my back pocket. “Unit 4 to S.O., I have elderly man having an apparent heart attack. I need an EMT at my location ASAP. I’ll be off the air giving CPR.”
“10-4 Unit 4,” was the immediate response.
I dropped my radio in the floorboard so I could listen to it then scooted the seats all the way back to have enough room to start CPR. I’d been giving him CPR for what seemed like a long time but I’m sure was only a couple of minutes when Unit 16 pulled up behind my truck with his blue lights on. Deputy Collins ran up to me and tapped me on the shoulder, “hey Faulkner, let me relieve you a spell.”
I moved out of the way and he moved in and continued with the CPR. As I was catching my breath I noticed that the lady had gotten the boy out of the car and they were both standing on the shoulder watching us.
“Ma’am, why don’t you and the young fellow go sit in my truck. The ambulance will be here shortly.”
“Okay, thank you,” and they turned and walked over to my truck and climbed in.
Within moments I could hear the siren of the EMT’s coming our way. I stepped back over to the car and spoke to Collins, “how’s it going Collins? I can hear the ambulance.”
“I’m good,” he said as he continued with compressions.
The ambulance pulled up next to us and the EMT on the passenger side jumped out and headed to the back of the ambulance to get some equipment. When the driver jumped out I immediately recognized him, it was David (from a previous Faulkner Tales story Tales from the Faulkner Files: The hero).
He ran over and tapped Deputy Collins on the shoulder and said, “I’ll take over.”
Collins stepped back and David took over. “Good job,” I told him.
We got out of the way and let the two EMT’s do their job. I walked over to my truck and climbed in the driver’s side and Deputy Collins went to the passenger side to talk to the lady and gather information for his report.
As the story goes, Mr. & Mrs. Tyler are from the Dallas area. They had driven up to Little Rock and picked up their 6 year old grandson, Ethan, and had taken him for an overnight stay in Branson, Missouri and a trip to Silver Dollar City as a Christmas gift. They were on their way back to Little Rock to spend Christmas with Ethan’s parents and then they were planning on going back home the day after Christmas. Apparently, with no prior signs of heart problems, Mr. Tyler was starting to experience dizziness and chest pain when they went past me on the highway. He was able to get the car pulled over and then passed out.
Mrs. Tyler looked over at me and said, “and that’s when you showed up. I had no idea you were anywhere around until you tapped on my window.”
At that moment I heard a shout from David, “Hey Faulkner!” I looked over at the EMT’s and he was waving us over. When I got out and headed back to the Tyler’s car they had Mr. Tyler strapped on a gurney.
David looked up at me and said, “we got him back. Let’s get him loaded and get him to the hospital.” I turned and looked at Mrs. Tyler in my truck and gave her the thumbs up. She had been quite stoic to this point but the tears started flowing in earnest and she hugged her grandson, Ethan.
We got Mr. Tyler loaded into the ambulance and David said he had room for one passenger if his wife wanted to go along. I went over to Mrs. Tyler and told her she could ride to the hospital in the ambulance. I would follow along with Ethan.
“What about our car?”
“Don’t worry about it,” Deputy Collins said. “We’ll get it to the hospital for you.”
She looked at me with a perplexed look, then looked at Ethan. “Ethan, you stay with . . . with . . . ,” she looked at me and said, “I don’t even know your name.”
I introduced myself and reached out to shake her hand. “I’ll take care of Ethan as though he were my own.”
She clasped my hand with both of hers, “thank you,” and turned to go climb into the ambulance.
As the ambulance drove off I turned to Deputy Collins. “Call dispatch and see if you can get a couple of reserve deputies to come out and ferry their car to the hospital.”
“Will do.”
I turned back to Ethan and said, “Ethan, climb out of there and come on back to the back of the truck. There’s someone back there you’ll want to meet. He climbed out and we went back and I dropped the tailgate and opened the carrier for Daisy to come out, tail just a wagging.
“Ethan, this is Daisy”
“Can I pet her?”
“Sure you can. In fact, I’ll let her ride up front with us on the way to the hospital to check on your grand dad.”
I glanced at my watch and it was about 11:30, I need to call home so Mrs. Faulkner won’t worry about us being gone longer than expected. I filled her in with the short version and told her we’d be home after a while. After the call Ethan, Daisy and I loaded back up in the truck and headed back to town.
“Ethan, have you had anything to eat?” I asked.
“Not since early this morning,” he replied.
“Good deal, how about we do the drive thru at McDonald’s and get a Happy Meal.”
I had taken a few days off for the holidays. I got up early Christmas Eve morning and started making final preparations for Christmas morning arrivals. Making sure we have plenty of firewood in the wood box and bringing in a few extra chairs around the table. I do most of the cooking on the smoker for our noon time feast and on Christmas morning Mrs. Faulkner will get up to fix the grandkids favorite sausage balls for breakfast.
About 9:30 Christmas Eve morning Mrs. Faulkner kind of surprises me with a request, “can you make a run to town? I have a short list of things we need, you can probably get everything at Mr. Mackey’s store.” She handed me a list with 7 or 8 items.
I said, “No kidding? I was in town yesterday!”
She gave me the squint eye look, “I didn’t realize I needed this stuff until this morning. If you will get a move on you can be there and back in no time. Take Daisy with you, she’ll enjoy the ride”
Well, I wasn’t looking forward to going to town on Christmas Eve and having to deal with all the last minute shoppers and corresponding traffic in town, but she’s right, if I have to go I might as well go get it over with.
I strapped on my Glock 23 and grabbed my coat and headed for the door. I opened the front door and saw Daisy was lounging on a mat on the front porch. “Let’s go girl, we’re going to town,” I told her. She jumped up and headed for the truck.
Mrs. Faulkner came to the door and shouted out to me, “y’all don’t dilly dally. Get the stuff and get back. I need you to get a box out of the attic for me when you get back.” I gave her a thumbs up.
With Daisy loaded up in her insulated carrier in the back we took off down the drive, hung and right on the county road and headed to town. After a few miles we came to the main two lane highway that takes us into town. Yep, as I figured, traffic was a little heavier this morning and it took me a bit longer to find a gap in the traffic to make the turn onto the highway. From here it’s about 20 minutes to town.
Fortunately, Mackey’s Hardware & General Store is not far into town. As we pulled into the gravel parking lot I noticed it was full. I found one of the few places left to park, got out and went around back to let Daisy out. Daisy and Mr. Mackey are buddies and he’s always glad to see her and giver a treat from the jar under the counter. When we went inside Daisy headed straight to the counter where Mr. Mackey was checking out someone at the register. Daisy went up and sat in front of the counter, Mr. Mackey looked over the counter at her and said, “have a seat Daisy and I’ll be right with you.” She waited patiently until he was finished, then he reached under the counter and got a treat from the jar and came around the counter and knelt down and gave her the treat and some petting.
I had gathered my few items from Mrs. Faulkner list and was at the counter to check out in short order. “Has it been busy all morning like this,” I asked Mr. Mackey.
“Yep,” he said, “ever since I opened up. Yesterday I was worried I’d bought too many Christmas trees this year, but I think I’m down to just a few and they’ll be gone by noon.”
He bagged up my items asked if I had any more shopping to do in town. “No sir,” I replied. “This is it and we’re headed back home. Merry Christmas Mr. Mackey.”
“You too Faulkner . . . see ya Daisy!”
I got Daisy loaded back up in the truck, backed out of the spot and pulled up to the highway to retrace the route home. Although there is no chance of a white Christmas in the Ozarks this year there is a bit of chill in the air and I have the local radio station playing Christmas music on the radio kind of stirring the holiday mood. We had traveled to within about 5 minutes of my turn off onto the county road when I noticed an oncoming car wasn’t tracking down the highway properly. I eased off the accelerator and as it went by I could see some commotion between the driver and passenger in the front seat. I looked into my rearview after it passed and I saw the car veer onto the shoulder and abruptly stop.
“Well, that’s just dandy,” I thought.
I slowed down and found a gap in the oncoming traffic and did a U-turn and headed back in the direction of the car. I reached over into my go-bag in the passenger seat and grabbed my handheld radio and turned it on. By then I’d pulled over and stopped behind the blue Toyota Camry with out of state plates.
“Unit 4 to S.O.”
“Go ahead Unit 4.”
“S.O., I am POV and have pulled over behind a motorist who has stopped on U.S. Highway 65 near Pea Vine Creek with unknown trouble. Could you send a marked unit in my direction?’
“10-4 Unit 4.”
“Unit 16 to S.O., I copied Unit 4’s traffic. I about 5 minutes away.”
“10-4 Unit 16.”
I don’t have blue lights on my personal owned truck so I hit the hazard button and got out, grabbing my badge clipped on the sun visor as I went and clipped it on my jacket. I stood behind my open door for a moment to ascertain what exactly was going on. I could see a lot of moving around in the front seat but not really tell what was happening. I walked up to the front of my truck, then eased over to the passenger side and when I got up to where I could see inside the back seat I saw young boy around 5 or 6 years old strapped in, then I could see an elderly man slumped over from behind the steering wheel and a frantic elderly lady shaking him and talking to him. I tapped on the window and as she turned to look at me I showed her my badge.
“Thank the good Lord, I think he’s having a heart attack!”
I opened the passenger side door and reached in across the lady and checked for a pulse . . . I couldn’t feel one.
“Ma’am, I need you to get out right now!”
As she scooted out I pulled out the handheld radio in my back pocket. “Unit 4 to S.O., I have elderly man having an apparent heart attack. I need an EMT at my location ASAP. I’ll be off the air giving CPR.”
“10-4 Unit 4,” was the immediate response.
I dropped my radio in the floorboard so I could listen to it then scooted the seats all the way back to have enough room to start CPR. I’d been giving him CPR for what seemed like a long time but I’m sure was only a couple of minutes when Unit 16 pulled up behind my truck with his blue lights on. Deputy Collins ran up to me and tapped me on the shoulder, “hey Faulkner, let me relieve you a spell.”
I moved out of the way and he moved in and continued with the CPR. As I was catching my breath I noticed that the lady had gotten the boy out of the car and they were both standing on the shoulder watching us.
“Ma’am, why don’t you and the young fellow go sit in my truck. The ambulance will be here shortly.”
“Okay, thank you,” and they turned and walked over to my truck and climbed in.
Within moments I could hear the siren of the EMT’s coming our way. I stepped back over to the car and spoke to Collins, “how’s it going Collins? I can hear the ambulance.”
“I’m good,” he said as he continued with compressions.
The ambulance pulled up next to us and the EMT on the passenger side jumped out and headed to the back of the ambulance to get some equipment. When the driver jumped out I immediately recognized him, it was David (from a previous Faulkner Tales story Tales from the Faulkner Files: The hero).
He ran over and tapped Deputy Collins on the shoulder and said, “I’ll take over.”
Collins stepped back and David took over. “Good job,” I told him.
We got out of the way and let the two EMT’s do their job. I walked over to my truck and climbed in the driver’s side and Deputy Collins went to the passenger side to talk to the lady and gather information for his report.
As the story goes, Mr. & Mrs. Tyler are from the Dallas area. They had driven up to Little Rock and picked up their 6 year old grandson, Ethan, and had taken him for an overnight stay in Branson, Missouri and a trip to Silver Dollar City as a Christmas gift. They were on their way back to Little Rock to spend Christmas with Ethan’s parents and then they were planning on going back home the day after Christmas. Apparently, with no prior signs of heart problems, Mr. Tyler was starting to experience dizziness and chest pain when they went past me on the highway. He was able to get the car pulled over and then passed out.
Mrs. Tyler looked over at me and said, “and that’s when you showed up. I had no idea you were anywhere around until you tapped on my window.”
At that moment I heard a shout from David, “Hey Faulkner!” I looked over at the EMT’s and he was waving us over. When I got out and headed back to the Tyler’s car they had Mr. Tyler strapped on a gurney.
David looked up at me and said, “we got him back. Let’s get him loaded and get him to the hospital.” I turned and looked at Mrs. Tyler in my truck and gave her the thumbs up. She had been quite stoic to this point but the tears started flowing in earnest and she hugged her grandson, Ethan.
We got Mr. Tyler loaded into the ambulance and David said he had room for one passenger if his wife wanted to go along. I went over to Mrs. Tyler and told her she could ride to the hospital in the ambulance. I would follow along with Ethan.
“What about our car?”
“Don’t worry about it,” Deputy Collins said. “We’ll get it to the hospital for you.”
She looked at me with a perplexed look, then looked at Ethan. “Ethan, you stay with . . . with . . . ,” she looked at me and said, “I don’t even know your name.”
I introduced myself and reached out to shake her hand. “I’ll take care of Ethan as though he were my own.”
She clasped my hand with both of hers, “thank you,” and turned to go climb into the ambulance.
As the ambulance drove off I turned to Deputy Collins. “Call dispatch and see if you can get a couple of reserve deputies to come out and ferry their car to the hospital.”
“Will do.”
I turned back to Ethan and said, “Ethan, climb out of there and come on back to the back of the truck. There’s someone back there you’ll want to meet. He climbed out and we went back and I dropped the tailgate and opened the carrier for Daisy to come out, tail just a wagging.
“Ethan, this is Daisy”
“Can I pet her?”
“Sure you can. In fact, I’ll let her ride up front with us on the way to the hospital to check on your grand dad.”
I glanced at my watch and it was about 11:30, I need to call home so Mrs. Faulkner won’t worry about us being gone longer than expected. I filled her in with the short version and told her we’d be home after a while. After the call Ethan, Daisy and I loaded back up in the truck and headed back to town.
“Ethan, have you had anything to eat?” I asked.
“Not since early this morning,” he replied.
“Good deal, how about we do the drive thru at McDonald’s and get a Happy Meal.”
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