First responders on golf carts credited with saving a life

BY DANIEL JACKSON
djackson@gastongazette.com

   Overheated and tired, Roy Derberry had stopped for lemonade as he walked home from the Country Fest in uptown Stanley on Saturday, but the cool drink apparently made him sick.
    He called his wife Donna to tell her he was on his way home, but when he didn’t show up, she walked outside and found her 54-year-old husband slumped over in a glider swing on the patio. Donna Derberry and her mother Sally Green could not wake him. Green checked his pulse, but counted only 12 beats per minute, then 10 and by that time they were on the phone with 911 dispatchers.
    Green, a 71-year-old resident whose husband Donald A. Green once served as mayor of the town, said she didn’t think her son-inlaw would be alive when the ambulance arrived, but then Stanley Police Lt. Derek Summey raced into the backyard on a golf cart.
   When Summey arrived, Roy Derberry was turning blue and had no pulse. Summey started chest compressions and didn’t quit until paramedics with the Stanley Rescue Squad and Gaston Emergency Medical Services relieved him.
    “I did not think he was going to make it all,” Green said. “My daughter, she was almost hysterical.”
    “It was the most wonderful thing in the world to see Derek Summey driving up there. He was just wonderful. I know his actions saved Roy’s life,” Green said.
    Summey said Green Meadows Golf Course lends its carts to the police department every year so they can patrol uptown during Country Fest, which attracts about 10,000 people and hundreds of vendors.
   Summey said he had just finished a sandwich Saturday, when he heard the 911 call. At the time, the Stanley Rescue Squad was out on another call and was still minutes away.
    The Derberrys’ residence on West Chestnut was near uptown just beyond the town’s last barricade for the festival. The family probably wasn’t expecting to see help arrive in a golf cart, but with the large crowd, that was the quickest way to get help to Derberry, Summey said.
    “It would have taken us longer to get there in our cars,” Summey said. “Everybody was shocked. It’s very unusual for police officers to arrive on golf carts.
    “It’s so crucial to have CPR done in the first five to seven minutes to keep blood circulating to the brain,” Summey said.
   Stanley Officer Matt Curfman pulled up after Summey in another golf cart, then Stanley Rescue’s Kenny Hager and Colin Withers arrived and GEMS.
    Derberry was taken to Gaston Memorial Hospital, where he spent the night in the Intensive Care Unit sedated in a coma-like state. Doctors told the family that Roy Derberry died Saturday and was resuscitated, Green said.
    The family was overjoyed when they arrived Sunday morning and found him awake and feeling better. Green said he was off the ventilator and talking, but remembered almost nothing about his medical emergency. Doctors moved him into a private room on Monday.
    “He’s doing well,” Green said Monday night. “We’re so grateful to everyone that helped him.”