Friday, a Middletown man got the chance to thank the first responders who helped save his life.
“I could be dead. I could be paralyzed,” Jamie Lentz said.
In December, he fell off a ladder while doing work on a Springboro home. A man who lives in the neighborhood, Josh Ballard, helped keep Lentz still until first responders arrived.
“Just that whole time I was there with him, I was just trying to think of what would I want to hear if I was in that situation, because it’s terrifying,” Ballard said.
Lentz only has vague memories of the emergency crews who came to his rescue.
“Next thing I remember, I’m in a helicopter,” Lentz said.
He suffered a spinal injury and a brain bleed and had to spend 23 days in the intensive care unit at Miami Valley Hospital.
Three months after the fall, he walked into the Clearcreek Fire District to say ‘thank you.’
“I’m so thankful that I feel like I don’t know how to say it,” Lentz said.
Fire Chief Steve Agenbroad said it means a lot that Lentz came in to show his appreciation.
“I see what the crews go through every day with their training and the hard work and dedication that most people don’t see,” Agenbroad said.
Lentz and Ballard have also developed a friendship. Ballard raised almost $23,000 for Lentz.