Paramedics Remain With A Man With Grenade Strapped To His Leg

Rickey Stokes

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Posted by: RStokes
Date: Oct 13 2014 4:56 PM

JASPER, Alabama - For a few hours Saturday morning, Cameron Padbury wasn't sure he would ever see his three young children again.

A paramedic for 18 years, it wasn't the first life-and-death situation the 37-year-old Jasper man found himself in. But it was, by far, one of the most unusual, and one with potentially explosive consequences.

For eight hours and in close quarters, Padbury kept vigil beside his 62-year-old patient, a man with a 40 mm practice grenade lodged in his thigh. Padbury and other paramedics in the parked ambulance outside of UAB's emergency room were told to keep the patient as still as possible or they might not live to see another sunrise.

"It was pretty nerve-wracking. It was an intense experience,'' Padbury said. "From what they were telling us, if he moved the right way it could go off and we could all die."

Padbury, the Walker County supervisor for Regional Paramedic Services, was one of several to take care of the man inside the ambulance while experts decided how best to resolve the problem.

Authorities praised the paramedics, along with the U.S. Army Explosive Ordnance Disposal specialist, who would eventually remove the grenade from the victim's leg. The practice grenades, experts said, will fire and travel up to several hundred meters.

"The Jasper paramedics stayed with the guy all night and saved his life,'' said Dave Hyche, a Birmingham supervisor with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. "Had it been a high explosive, it could have taken that ambulance apart."

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