MAN'S CRIES FOR HELP BRING TEENAGER TO THE RESCUE; GIRL HELPS SAVE NEIGHBOR WHO FELL

SCOTT CITY -- Russell Morrill says he's lucky to be alive and thankful his young neighbor heard his cries for help and responded.

Monday at about 5 p.m. Morrill, 88, returned to his rural home, lost his balance getting out of the car, and fell on his driveway. Unable to stand, he called out for help.

More than five hours later, his neighbor a quarter of a mile away, Janel Gulley, 16, was on her way home from a date when she thought she heard someone calling for help. She responded.

"When you get froze up like that you are durn lucky to be alive," Morrill said from his room at Southeast Missouri Hospital Tuesday. "I don't think half the people could have stood it. If she hadn't heard me, I guess I'd be laying out there yet."

"She really saved his life," said paramedic Roger Wood of the North Scott County Ambulance Service. "If he was to sit there all night (Monday), he would not have been with us today."

"I don't think I did anything great," Gulley said. "I'm just glad I heard him. I was prepared for something really bad. I took first aid and I knew what to do and I was ready for it."

But she was happy her skills were not needed.

"I was out there five-and-a-half hours," Morrill said. "I'm sure stiff from it too."

Before falling, Morrill had been to town. "I had walked around downtown. I went to the doctor's office and the pharmacy," Morrill said. "I thought I'd be all right to go home. I had been walking real slow but I made it."

Morrill, who has arthritis, fell on his gravel drive and was unable to get up.

"I'm not sure if it was the arthritis or a bad back," Morrill said. "I never could pull myself back up. I'm a pretty good-sized chicken 192 pounds."

He said he just kept "hollering for help," hoping someone would hear.

At about 10:45 p.m. Janel parked her car and was walking toward her home when she heard someone.

"We live out in the country and I thought someone was trying to scare me. Then I thought I was just hearing things. I'm always afraid to walk from my car to the house late at night. I always think I hear something."

Frightened, she ran to the front door and unlocked it, then paused and listened. Janel heard the cry for help again.

"I heard it again and I knew somebody was hurt and knew I had to help him," she said.

Janel went inside and told her father what she had heard.

Her father, Jerome Gulley, said it took a little convincing before he believed his daughter had really heard something. "I was in bed already. She came in and told me she had heard someone calling for help. I told her she probably was hearing the dogs bark or something."

Janel said: "I told him I thought it was Russell. My dad pretty well knows I hear things. But I think he knew I was serious and that Russell was out there and was hurting and we better go out there and help him."

He said: "I got up and got dressed and we went outside. But I heard nothing. So I hollered, and a man hollered help."

They called for police and an ambulance and then headed to their neighbor's house, where they found Morrill cold but okay on the driveway. "He was real cold, but he responded and knew who I was," Jerome Gulley said.

Janel Gulley went back home to get some blankets and to wake Morrill's nephew, Charles Morrill, also a neighbor.

Police and ambulance personnel arrived within minutes. He was admitted to Southeast Missouri Hospital where he was listed in fair condition Tuesday afternoon. Doctors have told him he may be able to go back home in a day or two.

"He's a sweet man," Janel Gulley said. "When the paramedics were there working with him, I peeked around and said, `Hi, Russell.' I didn't want to scare him."

"He's doing fine today," said Charles Morrill. "He was very cold; his body temperature was way lower than normal. But hours later he was still able to yell for help. She heard him fortunately.

"He's a tough, old rascal," Morrill said. "He bruises easy but he heals fast.

"I think he will be fine. He'll be in the hospital a few days. He's skinned up and bruised pretty bad."

Morrill was injured in repeated attempts to stand up.

Jerome Gulley said he had been outside in the garage earlier in the evening but hadn't heard anything.

Morrill lives about a quarter mile from his uncle, but he didn't hear anything.

"He has one closer neighbor than us, and that was the little girl who heard him," Morrill said.