Annual Red Cross breakfast honors those who have saved lives

Jacob Keesee follows a routine ­— he gets dressed, goes to school and afterward goes straight to the library down the road where he reads and uses his iPad until he’s picked up by his mom.

Keesee, a 21-year-old Vancouver resident, is on the autism spectrum. He said that the routine helps him to keep the events of his day predictable.

But on April 16, Keesee was walking along Mill Plain Boulevard when he saw a vehicle pull over. The driver was in distress.

The woman, Tracy Fisher, had gone into anaphylactic shock. She was having a hard time breathing and was seeing black spots. She asked to borrow Keesee’s cellphone, since hers was in the repair shop.

For a moment, Keesee was torn. He told her he doesn’t loan his cellphone to strangers. He wanted to continue along his path, keeping with his routine, but something told him this woman needed help.

“It occurred to me that it wouldn’t be right,” he said.

Jacob called 911 and stayed with Fisher until help arrived. He even stood in the middle of the road waving when the ambulance turned down the wrong street.

Earning the Emergency Response Hero award, Keesee received a standing ovation at Friday’s American Red Cross Real Heroes Breakfast. The annual event, in its 19th year, honors those who stepped up to help someone in need.

“He kind of was my hero there,” Fisher said in a video interview played at the breakfast. “He knew that he was off of his routine, he wasn’t doing what he had been taught to do. But he had to make a decision about what was the right thing to do. That was really difficult for him, and he saved my life.”

Some of Friday’s honorees saved lives by performing CPR, some pulled drowning children from waterways, and a Ridgefield police officer delivered a baby.

Rescue stories

Vancouver residents Anson and Angela Service credited their award, the Wilderness Rescue Heroes award, to a nagging feeling in their gut.

The couple was heading to a hike in the Gifford Pinchot National Forest in June 2015 when they spotted a dirt bike that looked like it had been set down. When the drove back from their hike, they saw the motorcycle again.

Anson Service said he didn’t think it looked too out of place, but a gut feeling made him get out and peer over a nearby cliff, where he saw a man at the edge of a creek. As it turned out, the man had been riding the bike on the remote logging road the day before, crashed into the trees and was catapulted into the ravine. Anson and Angela Service drove to get a cell signal and led paramedics to the man. A technical rescue team ended up performing the rescue.

“These stories are all about going out of your comfort zone and showing your deep down compassion to help someone,” said breakfast patron Aaron Dawson, president of Opsahl Dawson Certified Public Accountants. “It’s good to remember that we can help each other.”

Dawson said he’s sponsored a table for the past seven years because the Red Cross organization is indispensable.

Dennis Rugg, executive director of the Southwest Washington Chapter of the American Red Cross, said that the event gives him a good perspective on the work employees, board members and volunteers have done.

“It’s an opportunity for me to witness the whole organization come together to support the community and for the community to support the Red Cross,” he said.

The event is also a fundraiser for the relief organization, which assists each year with nearly 70,000 disasters throughout the United States.

“A lot of families are affected each and every day by disaster,” he said. “I always look to have more people involved and support a local cause that expends more on relief preparedness than we receive in donations.”

Those interested in volunteering, donating blood or making a monetary donation to the American Red Cross can get more information at www.redcross.org