Photos by Jamie Plain
When Mendy Rue’s 13-year-old son John asked to stay the night with a friend and his brother after church so the three could go fishing the next day, she didn’t think twice before giving her approval. The next morning, her whole world changed. Instead of the phone call she had been anticipating to coordinate a time to pick John up, Mendy answered the phone to the sound of a worried mother’s voice on the other end of the phone uttering the words, “He’s not breathing.” What the Daviess County Public Schools (DCPS) 2023 Middle School Teacher of the Year didn’t realize at the time was that a student she had taught in school over 17 years earlier, would be the one credited with saving her son’s life.
The Lifesaver
Meagan Griffin Bradfield was working from home on Monday morning, July 17, when her husband let her know that Alex and Jaxson Moore were fishing with their friend (John) at her pond.
“Two times before, these two little boys asked if they could fish in my pond — this was the third time they went fishing,” Bradfield said. “They said they would catch and release. I told them if anything happened, let me know.”
Bradfield said a little while later she heard a knock on the door, but when she answered she didn’t see anyone there. When she looked out the window, she noticed one of the boys wading in the water, which she said was about 4 feet deep. She thought he must have dropped his rod in, but before she could react, she said Alex pushed through the door
“He said, ‘My friend drowned!’’ Bradfield said. “I ran down there and skimmed the water and I said, ‘Where’s he at?’ Then I saw his red shorts.”
It was then that Bradfield, a former EMT with Nashville Metro EMS, pulled John’s water-soaked body as far as she could to the edge of the bank while Alex called 911. She recalls fearing the worst when seeing the loss of color and distinct shade of blue in John’s face and body.
“His body was so full of water and too heavy…I couldn’t get him out,” Bradfield said. “I told the boys to go sit by the tree and not look back. I dragged his body and put him on my knee and began CPR.”
She said she performed six rounds of CPR before crying out to God for help.
“I’m not a church-going girl,” Bradfield said. “I say my prayers and I believe in God, but I looked up at the sky and I prayed, ‘God I cannot do this,’ and I gave one last breath.”
It was at that moment, Bradfield recalls, that John pushed pond water back into her mouth and a coal-like substance began to drain from his left nostril.
She said the color soon returned to his face and, by the time the fire department arrived, he was breathing and responsive.
Manic Monday
Mendy had just dropped off her daughter Ellie for band camp at Daviess County High School (DCHS) when she received the life-changing call from Alex and Jaxson’s mother Biranda that John wasn’t breathing. Mendy knew few details at this point, and soon learned that John had apparently had a seizure and fallen into the pond where the boys tried to keep his head above water before going to Meagan for help.
Knowing her husband Ryan was leading band camp in McLean County, she called her best friend of 22 years and godmother of her children, Melissa Embry, to help her navigate the situation.
“I was still in bed when she called and she said, ‘They think John’s had a seizure and he’s fallen into the pond — I’ve got to go,” Embry said of the conversation with Mendy.
The two met at DCHS, and Mendy began driving to Greenville Hospital while Embry handled the logistics of speaking to the EMTs, calling John’s pediatrician, Dr. Mason, and returning phone calls and text messages. After discussing the situation with Dr. Mason, the decision was made to life flight John to Vanderbilt University Medical Center. Ryan met Mendy at the Muhlenberg County Airport in Greeneville where the two were able to see John before he was flown to Nashville.
“We got to see him before he flew, but we could not go with him because of the weight limit, which just absolutely devastated me,” Mendy said. “I got in the car with Ryan and we tried to make every call we could make to take care of things.”
Mendy said by the time she and Ryan arrived at the hospital, her parents were there and John had already been admitted to the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU) where they placed him on a ventilator because his lungs were bleeding.
“I got there and my mom tried to prepare me to see him,” Mendy said. “It didn’t really bother me to see him that way because I had a trust and a peace that they were doing the best for him and knew how to do their job.”
From there, Ryan and Mendy tried to piece together exactly what John had gone through that morning.
“We were hearing bits and pieces from here and there to try to figure out what happened,” Mendy said. “It wasn’t until Monday night when Meagan asked to talk to the doctors (on speakerphone) that we learned he was under the water and she had to get him out of the water, and that he was blue and she did CPR.”
After hearing Meagan share the story of the morning’s events, Mendy asked John’s nurse to show them where the chapel was while they took John for further testing.
“I knew there was nothing else I could do in the moment, but just pray,” Mendy said. “That sweet nurse showed us where the chapel was and asked if she could pray with us. It may not have been a big deal to her, but it meant a lot to us.”
Mendy said doctors pumped pond water out of John’s stomach and pushed air into his lungs at a really high rate to help keep his lungs from bleeding. As a result, part of his lung collapsed, requiring a chest tube to be inserted on Tuesday. John describes having the chest tube in as “the worst pain I ever had in my life.”
Ryan and Mendy were able to share a hotel room that was located on John’s floor. The couple took shifts sleeping and staying up with John, who would wake up every so often and respond as needed and expected.
Just when their strength was really being put to the test, she said, God stepped in, yet again.
Community Support
Word of John’s accident spread quickly throughout the Owensboro, McLean County, and band communities, and two separate prayer vigils were organized by McLean County and the Embrys.
“Our family sat in the living room and prayed and realized how powerful it was for our own (13-year-old) son Caden to pray for his friend,” Embry said of planning the prayer vigil at Owensboro Christian Church (OCC). “We thought, there has got to be a way for these kids to use the power of prayer to show John how much he is loved.”
Members of the boys’ baseball teams, and their opponents, showed up in uniform to demonstrate their support. The OCC middle school sanctuary room was also filled with friends, co-workers, and members of the community, including Alex and Jaxson Moore and Meagan.
Mendy said they had taken John to do some procedures during this time, so she and Ryan went downstairs and watched the livestream of the prayer service on their phones.
“It was really touching to see people that cared about our family and cared about him too,” Mendy said, adding that they were “overwhelmed in a good way” by the outpouring of support and generous donations given to their family.
“Ryan and I are not ones to take, we are usually the givers,” Mendy said. “People just rallied around us. You don’t really know how big your village is until you need them, and we needed them.”
Mendy said that things began to turn around after the prayer vigils. Physical therapists came in to get John moving and when he stood up for the first time, all of the pond water from his lungs came rushing out of the chest tube.
“He was really in pain, but once he stood up, gravity did its thing and all of that stopped,” Mendy said. “They took the chest tube out later that day and he was great.”
John used sign language and a whiteboard to communicate until the breathing tube was removed, from there his energy (and appetite) quickly returned. During his week-long hospital stay, a battery of tests were performed to rule out meningitis, Lyme disease, neurological damage, and to rule out cardiac activity versus seizure activity.
Mendy said that in her more vulnerable moments she found comfort in Tasha Layton’s song “Into the Sea,” and it became her constant reminder that everything was going to be okay.
“I thought, ‘God’s got this and he’s going to take care of our kid,’” Mendy said. “I never thought I was going to lose him, I just didn’t know if he would be the same.”
Moving Forward
John came home on Tuesday, July 25 after having an implantable loop recorder (ILR) device, similar to a pacemaker, implanted in his chest to monitor his cardiac activity. He was also sent home on daily seizure medication. Two weeks after returning home, he was cleared to return to normal activity and attended baseball practice. After returning home from the hospital, John had another seizure at school and was diagnosed with epilepsy at his most recent doctor’s appointment.
As far as what the future holds, Mendy said they are glad to have answers. The doctors have given John no physical limitations at this point, and he hopes to return to his normal life and activities.
She said that she does not allow worry about John’s future health to consume her, because she has faith that everything is going to be OK.