BY MARY JANE FARMER

HERALD DEMOCRAT

VAN ALSTYNE -- Van Alstyne Fire Lt. Derrick Miller said about the rope rescue of a teenage boy on Wednesday night, "It's one of those things you train and train and train for, and then it happens," and added that the fire department team used that training and teamwork to bring the boy up to safety and a waiting air ambulance.

The fire department was called to a home off Hinton Road after a 15-year-old boy and the golf cart he rode on dropped into a 45-foot creekbed. Miller explained it was 7:24 p.m. when they got the call, giving them a bit of daylight in which to work. The young man drove a golf cart on the family property, his sister a passenger, and they were out checking on a pet. After a stop, the teenager put the golf cart in reverse instead of forward, and it hurled over the edge of the 75-degree angled embankment and into the creekbed, which Miller estimated had about 1 1/2 feet of water running through it at that location.

When it started backwards, the sister jumped off the golf cart, then ran to the house to get help.

Van Alstyne Fire Department is staffed by full-time EMS crews who are also certified firefighters, and fire and rescue manpower is added by volunteers.

Miller, Driver Richard Brock, and Firefighter Landon Lindsey were the first to arrive, and had already placed CareFlight air ambulance on stand-by. Quickly assessing the situation, they called for a second engine. Department volunteers Lt. James Lewis, Lacy Lewis, and Coby Wilson responded, as did Van Alstyne Officer Gerald Smith.

The teen's parents had slid down the embankment and were holding the teen out of the water. Brock went down the embankment covered in briar patches and began preparing, or 'packaging' at firefighters call it, the teen for rescue.

Meanwhile, above them, when the second engine and crew arrived with extra ropes, they lowered a 30-foot ladder down as far as it would go, and with four men hoisting four ropes, hand over hand, pulled the teen's backboard upward.

CareFlite lifted off, on its way to the pasture near the scene which some of the firefighters were setting up as a landing zone. While EMS stabilized the teen in an ambulance, the remaining firefighters helped the parents and Wilson get out of the creekbed.

Miller said the whole rescue couldn't have been better. "They all did an excellent job," he said. Even the 10 minutes it took for CareFlite to arrive was good timing, as EMS crews must stabilize a patient before transferring him to a waiting helicopter. "It all went so smooth," Miller added.

The teen is believed to be in good and stable condition, and was flown to Baylor Hospital in Dallas.

The others on the rescue team, still wearing the creekbed mud, said that larger agencies have technical rope rescue squads, but on a smaller department such as Van Alstyne's, it's important that everyone learn, train, and reinforce what they each were taught in their separate fire academies.