May 30, 2018
By: Dwayne Page
A hometown hero credited for helping save the life of a woman involved in a March traffic accident was honored during Tuesday night’s county commission meeting.
Bobby Hull received the DeKalb County Fire Department’s Citizen Hero Award. The presentation was made to Hull by 18 year old Courtney Nichols, the woman involved in the crash.
The mishap occurred at approximately 6:00 p.m. on Saturday, March 24. Nichols was injured after her 2002 Jeep Cherokee went off Highway 56 north (Cookeville Highway) and overturned down a steep hillside embankment before coming to rest upside down in a hollow several feet below the road.
According to Trooper Sean Tramel of the Tennessee Highway Patrol, Nichols was driving south when the Jeep hydroplaned and then went out of control as Nichols overcorrected. The Jeep narrowly missed the end of a guardrail as it left the highway and plunged down the hillside north of Hurricane Bridge in the Blackberry Hill area.
Since there were no witnesses to the accident and the wreckage was out of view from motorists, Nichols went unnoticed for a long period of time. Entrapped in the Jeep, Nichols sounded the horn trying to attract attention.
Hull, a resident close by, heard the sound of the horn from his home and went to investigate. After spotting the wreckage, he sought help.
During Tuesday night’s county commission meeting, DeKalb Fire Chief Donny Green described in more detail the incidents surrounding the crash and how Hull’s heroic actions led to this special honor for him.
“On Saturday, March 24, 2018 at approximately 6:00 p.m., 18-year old Courtney Nichols, a Smithville resident, was driving home from work on Cookeville Hwy. As she was navigating a curve on a wet road, her Jeep Cherokee hydroplaned and went out of control and overturned at least once before it came to rest upside down at the bottom of a steep ravine.
There were no witnesses to the accident, her vehicle could not be seen from the highway, and she could not find her cell phone. Although not seriously injured, Courtney was trapped upside down hanging from her seatbelt and she knew her only hope was to sound her car horn hoping that someone might possibly hear it and find her.
That “someone” turned out to be Bobby Hull who lives across the highway on Blackberry Hill Road. Bobby and his wife, Judy, were in the kitchen cooking dinner and, even though it was a cool evening, they had briefly opened the kitchen window. As Bobby stood at the sink, he heard a faint sound of what sounded like a car horn. He mentioned it to his wife and they paused to listen, but didn’t hear it. As Bobby continued to help prepare dinner, he heard the horn again. At that point, he and Judy went to their front porch to investigate. They both stood on the porch for a few moments and did not hear the horn. Just as they began to go back inside, they heard the horn begin to intermittently sound again. It could have been a car alarm or someone playing, but Bobby felt uneasy and decided to pursue his sense of something being wrong. Bobby got in his pickup and drove down to the highway to the point where he thought the sounding horn was coming from. He got out of his truck and then saw skid marks in the grass that ran just behind the end of a guardrail. He walked to the guardrail, heard the horn again, and looked down the steep grade and saw the Jeep upside down at the bottom of the ravine. He immediately called 911 and reported the accident to DeKalb County 911 Center who dispatched emergency responders.
Despite Courtney’s misfortune of this accident, a lot of fortunate and miraculous things happened on the evening of March 24 for Courtney Nichols. Who would have ever thought a kitchen window could play such a pivotal role in life or death? Had the Hull’s not been cooking and decided to open the window on this cool evening, there is simply no way anyone could have heard Courtney’s car horn. How many civilians would have simply blown off the sound of a car horn as nothing very serious? After all, we’ve all heard that familiar sound of a neighbor’s car alarm going off. How many people would have been this aware of their surroundings and acted on a “gut feeling” that something just wasn’t right? I mean seriously, dinner is ready and it’s cold outside.
Although emergency responders did a great job when they got to the scene and removed and treated Courtney, Bobby Hull is the true hero because God allowed him to make a decision to act on something that did not seem normal. Without his action, it is most likely no one would have heard or saw Courtney’s car until it was too late.
DeKalb County Fire Department, DeKalb County Mayor and Board of County Commissioners encourage community involvement on all levels and are honored to recognize Bobby Hull as a Citizen Hero for making a life-saving difference in the outcome of this incident”.