Crash Victim Reunites With EMT
By Lori Lynch / Special Contributor to Mineral Wells Area News
Editors Note: It really takes a special kind of person to become a First Responder and our Special Contributor Lori Lynch learned how important those people can be. Her daughter, Jocelyn Bailey, and two of her friends survived a fatal car crash in late January that took the life of 20-year-old Mineral Wells resident Kieren Davis. The single car crash is still under investigation awaiting toxicology results, but as the survivors heal and move on with their lives, Lynch’s account of receiving that late night call all parents fear will have you hugging your kids a little tighter. We are blessed to have such a great community of First Responders in our community Thank you EMT’s, Firefighters and Police Officers!
I will never forget the morning of the twenty-second of January 2023. I woke up to a call from an unknown number, the time was 1:24 AM. My daughter had been in a wreck. There were also three other young people involved. Injuries were severe, even fatal. The after math left all of us in a daze. I was torn between panicked relief and deep grief over the loss suffered. Even now, as we have been moving forward in the healing process, I am forever united to the pang of knowing a family lost their child.
There are many people in the community who were left forever changed by this horrific event. I would like to honor by mention, the life of Kieren Davis. I have been told he was a wonderful kid that had a bright future ahead of him. The depth of such a loss is tremendously heartbreaking.
Kieren Davis, 20 years old, lost his life in the accident on January 22
In the wake of such tragedy, life gives us small glimmers of hope, beauty in the ashes. That is what I would like to share with you in this moment.
Following the transport to the hospital, they learned that my daughter’s spine had been severed, and she was taken straight into surgery. Once my daughter was in recovery, we brushed through her long, thick hair. The thought that just hours earlier, there had been a very real possibility of never being able to do this again, lingering in the room. As I was picking out blood matted leaves and grass, I wondered how she managed such a tangled mess when her hair was up. Seems trivial, I know, but I think we are desperate to gather any detail, every bit of knowledge surrounding every second of something so traumatic to make sense of it.
“It wasn’t up,” she said. “One of the EMTs took her ponytail out and put my hair up.”
I burst into tears. Imagining her, in the dark of the hour, in the midst of wreckage. In shock. Bloody. Dirty. Afraid. Without me. The most motherly thing one could’ve done is what this woman did. She took her own down and swept the bloody mess of hair out of my daughter’s face. This minute act of kindnesswas one of tremendous compassion that gives us a glimpse of something good in the face of something so laden with fear and pain.
I had frequent interaction with the fire department due to my job. I was able to narrow down who had been there that morning at the scene. One day when Leah Fluitt came into our office, I asked if she was the one that had performed the seemingly inconsequential gesture. She confirmed she was who I was looking for. Overwhelmed with gratefulness, and perhaps residual emotions from that fateful morning, tears streamed down my face as I hugged her. I wanted her to know that there is no insignificance in the smallest of kindnesses they extend in moments like the one she had experienced with my daughter. I find great comfort knowing in when our loved ones are in need, people like Leah are serving our community.
I would like to publicly recognize and thank Leah for loving on my daughter in a moment of vulnerability when I could not do so. Families enduring the fear and grief of tragedies usually find comfort in the details. This was a detail that should not be overlooked.
