It takes a village . . . Woman’s life is saved at Hootin an Hollarin

They say it takes a village to raise a child. Saturday at Hootin an Hollarin, a "village" of amazing people worked together to save a life.

Late Saturday morning, in the alley between the Ozark County Times and Ozarks Healthcare Pharmacy buildings, a woman collapsed onto the pavement. (We're not identifying her or her family here but hope to be able to share her name and her own recounting of the story in a later edition.) 

Her daughter managed to ease her fall so she didn't hit her head, and her son-in-law ran back toward the square, calling for help.

Former Ozark County resident Mike Dillin was walking with his mother, Luella Dillin, when he heard someone call his name. 

"He yelled, 'Mike! Go get the ambulance,'" Dillin recalled Sunday. An experienced emergency medical technician, Mike worked for Ozark County Ambulance (and also pastored the First Baptist Church here) from 2002 until he and wife Jane moved away in 2013. The Dillins now live in Cabool, and he works for Willow Springs Ambulance and serves as director of missions for the Southern Baptist Association. He is also an instructor of classes that teach cardio-pulmonary resuscitation (CPR) and the use of automatic external defibrillators (AEDs). 

Mike looked over the man's shoulder and saw someone lying on the ground. "I told him, 'You go get the ambulance. I'll get over there,'" he said.

Mike arrived at the woman's side at about the same time as Rory Liddicoat, chief of the Brixey-Rockbridge Volunteer Fire Department, who had been working at the VFD's booth around the corner near the MFA Propane office. He responded when the woman's son-in-law went running through the crowd, calling for help. Liddicoat, as an emergency first responder, is also trained and experienced in CPR. 

The woman wasn't breathing, had no pulse and "was as blue as she could be," Dillin said. 

Gainesville resident Heather Morrison, a registered nurse who works at Baxter Health in Mountain Home, Arkansas, was walking through the crowd with her daughter, Blakely, when she noticed "only two people doing CPR on an unresponsive lady." She hurried to help.

While Liddicoat performed CPR chest compressions, Dillin began rescue breathing and Morrison helped support the woman's head to keep her jaw lifted into position for the rescue breaths.

Ozark County Times advertising manager, Jenny Yarger and Times editor Jessi Dreckman were working hard uploading Hootin an Hollarin photos when someone ran into the office saying, “Call 911! Someone is giving CPR to a lady in the ally by your office, and they need an ambulance!” While Jenny called 911, Jessi rushed to the courthouse after hearing Heather Morrison shout, "We need an AED!" 

Because the Times had published recent stories about the county commission buying new AED units for the courthouse and the county's VFDs, Jessi knew about the courthouse's unit and rushed to fetch it. The courthouse door was locked, but Ozark County Collector Darla Sullivan was sitting in the Hootin an Hollarin crowd listening to the music while her son, Sam Overturf, served as festival emcee. Sam saw Jessi's frantic movements and connected her with Darla, who provided a door key. Jessi and another woman rushed through the courthouse's dark interior; Jessi took the device from its bracket and handed it to the other woman, who raced back to the team in the alley while Jessi relocked the courthouse door and returned Darla's key.

 Dillin, Liddicoat and Morrison quickly connected the AED to the woman then followed its audio instructions to deliver a shock in an attempt to restart the woman's heart. "We got her back, but then she coded again," Liddicoat said. 

They had resumed their efforts when paramedic Hunter Ryan, assistant administrator of the Ozark County Ambulance District, arrived. Ryan had hurried to the scene from the ambulance district's command center a block away in front of Doug Hawkins' Shelter Insurance office at Third and Main streets, but he had only limited life-support equipment with him. Usually an AED is available to the crew at Hootin an Hollarin, but at midday Saturday, both of the district's ambulances that carried the equipment were out on calls and were at least 40 minutes away.

Ryan joined the team kneeling on the ground beside the woman, quickly started an IV and called in Air Evac.

Gainesville Elementary School teacher and Hootin an Hollarin Committee member April Luna tended the young children in the woman's family while the rescue progressed. 

Within a few more minutes, after a second shock, the woman started breathing again and was even talking with her rescuers by the time she was loaded into the helicopter after it landed at the old ambulance base at Highways 160 and 5 north, Dillin said. 

The woman was flown to Baxter Health in Mountain Home, Arkansas, where she remained hospitalized on Sunday night when this story was written. We hope to update her story in an upcoming edition of the Times.

'Don't give up. Don't stop'

It's an unusual thing for someone to suffer cardiac arrest in a non-medical setting like this one where the victim is immediately surrounded by people who know exactly what to do and have the equipment they need to do it.

Even though the rescuers in this woman's case had delivered CPR dozens, maybe hundreds, of times during their years of emergency service, "it's rare to get someone back," Dillin said.

Heather Morrison, who's been a nurse for 27 years, said it was her "first time having to do CPR outside of a controlled hospital setting." 

For Liddicoat, who has done CPR many times as a first responder, this was his first CPR save – and it was amazing. Emergency first responders "can go a lifetime and not get this feeling of being able to bring someone back," he said. 

Ironically, Ozark County has seen two of these rare, back-from-the-brink rescues in just over a year. And it's because of the first rescue that the second successful rescue could happen.

In June 2024, an untrained bystander, an off-duty paramedic and Pontiac-Price Place VFD first responders equipped with an AED saved 17-year-old Logan Hillhouse after he collapsed with unexplained cardiac arrest at Pontiac Cove Marina, where he was working as a dockhand. The story, published in the July 24, 2024, edition of the Times, with a follow-up published in the June 25 edition this year, prompted Logan's aunt, Ozark County Public Administrator Melinda Abraham, to check the AED that had hung for years on the wall outside her courthouse office. It was dead, having never been used, as far as anyone knew.

That's quite common, said Dillin. "Early CPR and early defib save lives," he said. Heather Morrison added, "An AED is not scary to use, and it only shocks a heart that needs it."

But Dillin noted that, in so many cases, even if an AED is available, it's not useable because it hasn't been maintained properly or the battery is dead. 

After the Hillhouse rescue, the Ozark County Commission purchased new AEDs for the courthouse and the county's VFDs. Because the courthouse's AED was charged and ready, it was used Saturday to save a woman's life. Monday morning, Ryan returned the courthouse AED to its bracket, equipped with new pads so it's ready if needed again.

The incident has prompted further changes that may save someone else's life in the future. OCAD's Hunter Ryan said the ambulance district will reconfigure its equipment so that a remotely stationed team, such as the one at Hootin an Hollarin, will have an AED available even if both ambulances are on calls. And Liddicoat said BRBVFD will be more aware of making sure its AED, which is kept at the firehouse, is available when they're working at off-site events. 

Not surprisingly, many of those involved in this rescue saw the extraordinary event as a divine moment. Liddicoat, who describes himself as a "hard Christian," said he fully believes "God put that woman there because He knew people were there who could help her." 

As he was administering the strenuous CPR chest compressions, Liddicoat said he "felt a presence in my ear. It said, 'Don't give up. Don't stop.'" 

Others at the scene offered to relieve him. "They asked me, 'Are you tired?' and I said, 'No. I'm good,'" he told the Times. 

Later, on Sunday night, he tried to describe to the Times the profound feeling of what happened next – but couldn't quite find the words: "To sit there and watch her life come back into her eyes . . . ," he said.