Quick Response Saves Buckhead Life

Quick emergency response saves life of

Buckhead man

M. Elizabeth Neal | Posted: Thursday, April 18, 2013 9:29 am

BUCKHEAD – Abe Mingo, 51, of 2410 Parks Mill Road, may well owe his life to two Morgan County Sheriff’s deputies and a volunteer firefighter who responded immediately to a request for a welfare check called in last week by Mingo’s dialysis provider.

When the Buckhead resident missed one of his weekly medical appointments, the provider notified MCSO, requesting that an officer make contact with Mingo at his home, according to

MCSO reports. Deputy Derrick Reid and Capt. Chris Bish responded instantly.

Receiving no response to their knock at Mingo’s front door, Reid and Bish looked through a window of the house to spot a man, lying facedown on the floor, apparently unconscious.

By that time, volunteer firefighter Randy Ross had arrived on the scene, and at the deputies’ request, pried

open the front door of the house to give them access to the stricken man.

Bish said the resident was unconscious and unresponsive with no apparent pulse. But as he turned him over in preparation for Cardio-Pulmonary Resuscitation (CPR), Mingo gasped. By that time, paramedics were rushing through the door, and Bish turned over Mingo’s emergency care to them.

On Tuesday, a recovered Mingo visited the MCSO to thank Bish and Reid for saving his life, and to retrieve two firearms the deputies had secured at the house. Mingo said he had been told by paramedics that if deputies had not responded immediately to the request for a welfare check, he

would not have survived.

“This was a team effort,” Bish said later, adding that it also serves as a memorable argument against procrastination.