QUICK THINKING: BOY COMES TO GRANDFATHER'S RESCUE

JACKSON -- An 11-year-old rural Jackson boy acted quickly when his grandfather was involved in a farm accident early Monday. In fact, nurses at St. Francis Medical Center say the boy may have saved his grandfather's life.

At about 9:15 a.m. Monday, Brandon Wendel was helping his 74-year-old grandfather Jacob Wendel park a farm implement rigged to a tractor under a low overhang on the family farm near Oak Ridge.

The overhang is too low to pull the tractor under, Brandon said, so his grandfather was guiding the implement as far under as he could without bumping the overhang.

"His foot just slipped off the clutch," Brandon said. "The tractor jumped backwards and took grandpa with it.

"I saw him get pulled under the overhang real fast," he continued. "The rafters were breaking and it was tearing the roof up."

Brandon then ran inside his grandfather's home and called his mother.

"I was hysterical," Brandon said. "Mom couldn't understand anything I was saying, so I hung up on her and called 911."

Brandon was connected with the ambulance service by the Cape County Sheriff's Department, who received the call.

Meanwhile, Brandon's mother called the doctor's office where his grandmother had an appointment Monday morning.

As Brandon was on the phone with the ambulance service, his grandfather staggered into the house.

"He was all bloody," Brandon said. "You could see the tendons in his hand, he was missing all kinds of skin on his back and he was bleeding all over."

Jacob Wendel spoke briefly with the dispatcher and then returned the phone to his grandson.

The dispatcher on the other end of the line asked Brandon about the condition of his grandfather and told him to wrap him in towels until the ambulance arrives.

"He wouldn't let me do it," Brandon said. "I got him to sit down and stay still until the ambulance arrived."

As the two waited in the house, Brandon's grandmother and a neighbor arrived to help. After help arrived, Brandon's grandmother rode in the ambulance and Brandon got into a truck with the neighbor. The two met Brandon's mother on his grandparents' road.

"She took me to the hospital and we spent the whole day there," Brandon said. "They took grandpa into surgery right away; he's going to be all right now."

Jacob Wendel is in stable condition at St. Francis Medical Center. He suffered several broken ribs, a badly broken wrist and incurred several deep cuts and bruises in the accident.

Brandon said that he was "scared to death" when the incident occurred, but acted as he had seen on rescue shows on television.

"I just did the first thing that popped into my head it was really hard to think," he said. "I was the only one there when it happened; I knew I had to get help for grandpa fast."

Brandon said that several nurses at St. Francis Medical Center have told him that he did a fine job Monday morning and that his grandfather probably owes his life to his grandson.

"It was nothing," he said. "I'm just glad grandpa's OK."