Brooks teen makes full recovery after being crushed beneath flipped Jeep

When Matt Norton needed God and his friends the most, they all came through for him.

There he was, pinned underneath an overturned Jeep, his chest crushed by the weight of the vehicle. He gasped for air, unable to breathe.

While 911 was called and his friends tried to free him, an angel intervened in the form of a neighbor, who happened to be a veteran paramedic.

That paramedic, Bobby Demine, had seen grim scenes like this one before. He knew if Norton wasn’t freed immediately, his chances were slim. So Demine, the Jeep’s driver, Todd Brock, and passenger Trey Lawson lifted the vehicle several inches while Todd managed to pull Matt free from the wreckage.

Matt, a senior at Starr’s Mill High School, wasn’t breathing, and he had no pulse, Demine said. So he and Trey started cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) to get oxygen flowing to Matt’s brain.

Demine performed the rescue breathing while instructing Todd how to do the chest compressions to help circulate the oxygenated blood.

Meanwhile, the first medic crew arrived and then one of several miracles: Matt started trying to breathe on his own. The emergency crew took over and after helping them initially, Demine pulled back. That’s when it first hit him: he hadn’t been just helping an anonymous wreck victim — that 17-year-old kid was his neighbor, caught in the wreckage hardly a stone’s throw from his own home.

“I’ve known him since he was 9,” Demine said of Matt, noting that his son and Matt often played together when they were younger. “... It’s something that you don’t want to see.”

***

It’s no wonder that many people who know Matt’s story insist that God intervened on Matt’s behalf.

Demine just happened to be off-duty that day and at home at the time of the crash. His wife had happened to take out the garbage when she noticed the overturned Jeep. She hopped on her Nextel radio, wresting Demine from his nap and into action.

Demine was on the scene in seconds, and his intervention is specifically being credited with saving Matt’s life. Because Matt’s lungs were crushed and he couldn’t breathe, it was a matter of two to six minutes before permanent brain damage would set in, according to acting Public Safety Director Allen McCullough. Any more of a delay, and death was almost certain.

Immediately after the Aug. 23 crash, when Todd’s Jeep came to a rest, he and Trey sprung into action. While Todd worked to pull out Matt, Trey called 911 and realized he didn’t even know the name of the road they were on, so he ran to a nearby house for the information.

Meanwhile Demine made it to the crash site and called 911 with the location and an update on Matt’s condition.

As emergency vehicles and personnel swarmed the scene, Todd and Trey were put in the back of a deputy’s patrol car, and they were told it was so they could cool off, after working to save Matt and lifting the Jeep in the 90-plus-degree heat.

“I was sure that we were going to jail,” Trey said.

Trey and Todd were both more worried about their friend, but it would’ve been worse had they not seen him start to try and breathe on his own.

Emergency crews, meanwhile, stuck a needle in Matt’s chest to help his lungs partially re-expand. They put a breathing tube down his throat to breathe for him.

A medical helicopter touched down nearby, and Matt was off to Atlanta Medical Center, with his life hanging in the balance.

Capt. Bryan Woodie of the Fayette County Sheriff’s Department went to the Norton’s home, notifying Matt’s dad Chip about the accident. Though the news was tragic, Chip said it was at least comforting getting it from someone he knew, and seeing familiar faces at the crash scene put him somewhat at ease.

Shortly into their drive to the hospital, Pam Norton said she achieved an inner peace despite the nerve-wracking ordeal of knowing her son was in a potentially deadly situation.

Maybe it was God’s subtle way of letting her know that in the end, everything would be all right.

Still, Chip said, “It was a long ride.”

“It was a very difficult journey,” Pam said. “I just had to trust him.”

Doctors would later be guarded about Matt’s chances after he was treated at the emergency room and moved into the intensive care unit.

“To go back and see Matt for the first time was just overwhelming,” Chip said. Matt remained unconscious, hooked to a breathing machine and numerous other tubes. A friend encouraged Chip to take a photo of him in the hospital bed, and he did. Matt jokes that he looks fat in the picture.

The family later found out that Matt also suffered a concussion, but the only doctor he now needs clearance from is a cardiologist to make sure his heart hasn’t suffered any ill effects from the crash. He’s already been cleared to drive.

Chip Norton recalled being told how crucial the next 24-48 hours were. The waiting room had swelled with friends, neighbors and fellow church members concerned about Matt and wanting to comfort the family. Neighbors kept Matt’s siblings overnight.

Chip said the family was swarmed with food and other good deeds by friends and fellow members of Harp’s Crossing Baptist Church. Several people arranged hotel stays for the family in downtown Atlanta while Matt recovered in the hospital, three weeks in ICU and another week in medical care, both at Atlanta Medical, followed by about a week at Shepherd Center before his ultimate release to return home.

***

Minutes before the crash, Todd, Matt and Trey had set out from the parking lot at Starr’s Mill High School, turning down the music in the Jeep because loud music irritates the school resource officer. Matt lives off Sovereign Trail, a dirt road in Brooks, where the crash actually happened.

Todd remembers feeling the Jeep fishtailing on him before he lost control and it ran into a ditch, clipping a tree while spinning around 180 degrees.

On a recent evening at home recalling the incident with Todd, Trey and his family, Matt joked “how cool” it would be to have a video of the crash itself. It might be easier for him to joke about the incident: he’s only left with a scar on his throat from a breathing tube and a gash-type scar on his right arm.

Matt’s baseball practice schedule is back up and running with workouts at Home Plate in Peachtree City. He hopes to get a college baseball scholarship, and he’s getting in shape for the season’s start.

He’s also playing guitar in a praise band that’s starting to play at local churches. When Todd and Trey were over at the house, they hit the Xbox for a game of Halo, a shoot-’em-up fantasy game.

The whole scene gets a little noisy, and Chip fights back the typical father’s urge to ask the boys to quiet down. It’s just boys being boys, and he’s just happy his son got a second chance to live.

“God had his hand on us, and that didn’t catch me by surprise,” Chip Norton said. “... We can just see God’s fingerprints on all this.”

***

It just happened that Matt had taken off his seat belt just before the crash to snag his cell phone that had dropped on the floor of the Jeep, Trey and Todd said. Matt said he doesn’t remember that, nor does he remember the accident or a good bit of what occurred during his recovery period, largely due to the medications he was on.

Trey, who was riding in the backseat, insists the Jeep wasn’t going fast at all.

Both Trey and Todd have become somewhat fanatical about making sure friends and family remember to buckle up.

Chip Norton said the wreck changed him as well. He used to take sirens and speeding ambulances on the road for granted; that’s no longer the case.

“Now, we pray for the people going on the call, and for the people they’re headed towards,” Norton said, happy that his family’s prayer was answered in Matt’s full recovery.

Many people might consider Demine, Todd and Trey as being God’s agents that day. Without their determination to free Matt, and without Demine’s expertise, who’s to say Matt would have made it to the hospital alive, much less made a complete recovery?

Matt’s mom thinks the ultimate lesson lies deeper than that.

“I hope the students and everybody who’s aware of this realizes there’s no guarantee for your next breath,” Pam Norton said.

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