The heroes among us

  • Published
  • By Capt. Justin Perkins
  • 14th Flying Training Wing Flight Safety Officer
COLUMBUS AIR FORCE BASE, Miss. --  As a father there is almost nothing worse than to be told your child is being rushed to the hospital in an ambulance. Unfortunately, I know from experience. Just over a year ago now, Jack, my (then) one year old son, stepped in a fire ant nest in our back yard on Columbus Air Force Base. He was bitten on his arms and legs well over 30 times before my wife could grab him away from the nest. By the time she got him inside, he was vomiting, turning very pale, and his body was starting to swell. She got him into the kitchen sink where she scraped and rinsed off the remaining fire ants from his body (incurring several bites herself) while simultaneously dialing 911. At this point Jack went into anaphylactic shock and stopped breathing. No sooner had our son stopped breathing than there was a knock on the front door.

It was Todd Burgess, a maintenance technician from the Hunt Communities housing office responding to a request we had placed to fix a light. Immediately after my wife opened the door, Mr. Burgess saw what was happening and sprang into action, taking Jack out of my wife's arms and laying him on his side. He grabbed Jack's tongue and pulled it out of his mouth, which thankfully caused my son to start breathing again. Mr. Burgess was prepared to continue administering CPR, but fortunately Jack continued to breathe and remain conscious. He continued to hold Jack in his arms and ensured his little body kept breathing until the ambulance and first responders arrived. My son is alive and well today thanks to the quick action and infant CPR training of Mr. Burgess, who will forever be a hero to our family.

"Something like that will change a man" Mr. Burgess would say to us during visits to check in on Jack after we returned from the hospital. "Mr. Todd" as Jack called him, would always find time to drop in and say hi to Jack and give him a bear hug during his rounds and he always carried Jack's birthday invitations with him in his maintenance truck. My wife would periodically stop in at the maintenance facility during neighborhood walks so Jack could say hi to his friend Mr. Todd. Ever since Jack's harrowing incident, Mr. Todd wore a cross on the bill of his ball cap, attributing it to what happened that fateful day in our home. I was able to thank Todd for his actions, but there is no way I could ever repay him for saving my son's life. My family is forever in his debt, and we will never forget him or what he did for our family.

Mr. Todd Burgess passed away in his sleep peacefully this past Sunday, Sept. 15. His unexpected passing has been difficult and saddening for everyone who knew him. Burgess, a retired Air Force master sergeant, retired in 1982 with nearly 21 years of service in the Army and Air Force. Along with six years of previous service in the Army, Burgess spent 14 years in the Air Force as an Aircraft Armament Systems Technician. As a AC-130 gunner, he was awarded numerous decorations including the Vietnam Service medal with three Service Stars, Distinguished Flying Cross with two Oak Leaf Clusters and the Air Medal with six Oak Leaf Clusters.

I wish I had told him more often how grateful I was to him, and taken more time to get to know the man who saved my son's life. Mr. Todd's presence will certainly be missed by his family, friends and coworkers, but his legacy and service are alive and well in a little boy named Jack.

As a father of two boys under the age of three, I cannot emphasize enough the importance of being trained in life-saving skills such as CPR and Infant CPR. You may not have kids yourself, but you never know when you may be the one who is at the right place at the right time to save a life. I pray that if your family ever finds themselves in a situation like mine did, you have someone like Todd Burgess knocking on your door.

For information about CPR classes available to you, visit www.redcross.org / www.heart.org or contact Baptist Memorial Hospital for classes downtown at 244-1000.