Posted on 11/17/2003 9:24:12 PM PST by CloseEncounters
Scout's honor Grandmother's rescue earns national merit
By TUCKER MCQUEEN The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Sandra Gerald knew she was in trouble after falling outside her home. It was a cold night and she was bleeding profusely from a head wound. Paramedics told her she could have died if someone hadn't come to her rescue.
Luckily, her 10-year-old grandson was at her side in seconds. Sebastian Phillips' quick actions kept his grandmother from going into shock and stopped the bleeding before the ambulance arrived. Sebastian had learned first aid at a Webelos Scout meeting a few months earlier.
Sunday at a ceremony at Loudermilk Conference Center in Atlanta, he was surprised with one of Scouting's highest honors, a national certificate of merit.
It all came as a big shock to Sebastian, who thought he was there to see other Scouts be recognized. He didn't even catch on when his fellow pack members greeted him with hugs as he entered the room late, having been kept in the parking lot by his family while things were made ready by the 30 people inside.
It was not until he was called to the podium that he realized he was the Scout of the hour. Asked to say a few words, he was speechless as he looked across the stage for his mother, Tracie de Santiago, and grandmother, his head barely reaching the top of the podium.
After the ceremony, the young Scout said he was shocked and confused by the attention.
It was like that at first on Dec. 15.
He said he heard his grandmother's cries for help and was too scared to move. But he had no other choice.
"She's always been there for me," he said. "I couldn't just stand there. I had to do something."
Gerald, 62, was recovering from back surgery and was home alone with her grandson. Family members told her to stay inside, but she didn't think anyone would notice if she took a peek at the Christmas tree lights outside. She stepped onto the front porch, slipped and struck her head on a concrete step.
"Nan. Nan. Let's go back inside," Gerald remembers Sebastian saying, as he helped her up. "He was so calm. There was no fear in his eyes. There he was like nothing was wrong. He just appeared and offered me his arm."
After helping her into her bedroom, he elevated her feet with a pillow, covered her with a blanket and applied direct pressure to stop the bleeding. Sebastian was equally calm with his mother when he phoned her at work. She called 911 and headed home while her only child continued to stabilize her mother.
Knowing his mother would be upset by the trail of blood on the floor, he cleaned it up before she arrived.
Sebastian went beyond what is expected of a child his age, said Dale Stubbs, the boy's Scout den leader. He had joined the pack only a few months earlier and earned a first aid activities patch.
The Smyrna pack of 62 Webelos, a two-year bridge between Cub and Boy Scouts, meets at St. Thomas the Apostle Catholic Church.
Sebastian's grandmother and mother describe the Nickajack Elementary School fifth-grader as a quiet, bright child who is into computers, books and Legos. Gerald said he is an unusual boy who absorbs everything he hears. She calls her only grandson her angel.
Sebastian's mother said her son was able to be a rescuer because of two angels who saved him two months before he was born. While she was driving on an interstate near her home, then in Louisiana, she was cut off by another car. Her car flipped four times and caught on fire. Badly injured and trapped, she watched a man and young boy open the car door and cut her seat belt to get her out. No one else at the scene saw them and de Santiago couldn't find them after putting ads in newspapers.
"I almost lost my life and my child's. But angels were there to save us," she said emotionally. "That makes this day even more special. I am just so proud of my son."
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