http://ozarkspub.vo.llnwd.net/o37/KSMU/audio/mp3/local-teenagers-father-save-drowning-man-30-seconds-death_80699.mp3
It was supposed to be a normal day on the lake. David Sheets, his 16-year-old son Michael, and three of his teenaged friends had planned to meet another group at Table Rock Lake, outside of Branson. With their friends running late, the group decided to take the boat out on a short drive in the Beardsley Branch area. Within minutes, David says they saw what looked like a vacant boat, yards away from a stranded swimmer.
“He started to roll over and started to go face down and that’s why I was like “we don’t really have time to do much here” so that’s when I dove in,” said David Sheets
“All I remember is him yelling, jumping off the boat, is ‘Call 911’ and there he went. I was like, there goes dad,” Michael Sheets said.
On June 30th of last year, the quick actions of the Sheets, along with Morgan Sutterfield, Aaron Appleton, and Sawyer Collins, saved the life of a man, who had fallen off his boat with no life jacket.
As David Sheets explains, the man was not responsive in the water.
“Aaron and I are trying to have something to hold onto, Sawyer is up there scrambling trying to communicate with another boat to get the life jackets out, Michael is driving the boat. Morgan is asking where we were for 911,” said David Sheets.
They say their actions during the incident simply could not have been planned.
“There is no script for this you don’t plan for it, none us knew what to do. I drive a truck,” said David Sheets.
The commotion happened so quickly both David Sheets and Appleton dove into the water, without any floatation device. They had to swim out even further when the life vest thrown to them was redirected by the wind.
Treading water now, without a lifejacket of their own, they attempted to place the one thrown to them under the man. As they pulled the victim’s head up, the crew began to realize how grim his condition was.
At that point, Morgan Sutterfield has a 911 operator on the phone.
“I am trying to get close enough to where I can see him because they are asking me all these questions about if he is breathing, what his eyes look like,” Sutterfield said.
“His whole face neck and chest was a dark purplish, blue and his eyes were wide open and his mouth was open. We got to do what we got to do to get him out of the water because this isn’t good ” said Michael Sheets.
Unsure of how they would load the man from the water into their high bass fishing boat, another group of lake-goers then approached with a low swim-deck. Together, they lifted the non-responsive victim to the low floating boat.
“His eyes kept rolling back in his head when we first got him back on the boat and, as soon as we rolled him over, his eyes started rolling back, looking all over the place, and blinking. His mouth kept opening and closing so you could just see him coming back to life,” Michael Sheets said.
The two boats with the now semi-responsive man sped to the nearest dock.
“I don’t think I was even on the phone with them for very long. This all happened really fast,” said Sutterfield.
First responders, water patrol, and paramedics met the groups on the dock. The victim was then taken by emergency service and given oxygen. He later began to breathe on his own.
“I went up there and asked the first responses and asked how much time you thought we had to go. We were thinking five, ten minutes possibly and he laughed he said ‘You guys had pretty good timing, we are guessing about 30 seconds, less than that,’” said Michael Sheets.
“The last incident before we pulled away from the dock was David telling us to look at the man alive and breathing and had full color and was at least conscious that way our last memory of him was not blue,” Suttlefield said.
While they have not been in contact with the victim since the incident, they have heard he was back out on Table Rock Lake fishing within the week. The quick response, action, and directions that David Sheets initiated, along with the actions of the four teenagers, saved a life.
“That’s why I say I don’t believe in coincidence,” said David Sheets.
“It was fate,” Suttlefield said.
“Just hit a red light in Ozark,” said Michael Sheets.
“Any of those things would have changed the outcome… And I keep calling them kids, they are not children, they are students. But all four of them found a role and did it. We had a difficult set of circumstances and I am very proud of four students who I couldn’t have done it without,” David Sheets said.
I asked David, Michael, and Morgan if they thought of themselves as heroes. Their quick response: that anyone in their position would have done the same.
For KSMU News, I’m Shannon Bowers.