NICEVILLE — Little Paxton Tucker doesn’t have too much to say when he gets around a big group of people, but when he’s feeling affectionate he’s got a way of communicating with a wiggle of his brow that his family calls his “cute eye.”
He was flashing that cute eye Saturday morning as anticipation built leading up to his long-anticipated helicopter ride with a group of medical professionals. It would not be his first trip aboard this particular aircraft, but it would be the one he will remember, quite likely forever.
“He has been counting down the days,” said his beaming mother, Natasha Mitchell.
Paxton, who will turn 5 years old on Thursday, was diagnosed with leukemia in March of 2021. Almost a year to the day later, as he was undergoing the most intensive chemotherapy regimen he would endure during the course of his treatment, a simple bump to the head almost proved fatal.
South Walton firefighter:Having survived cancer diagnosis, he’s now stressing the importance of prevention
Healthgrades:HCA Florida Fort Walton-Destin rated in top 10 percent for patient safety
‘Team building’:Florida Panhandle first responders get maritime search, rescue training
Natasha said shortly after running into a wall at the family’s Freeport home, Paxton began showing signs that he was more severely hurt than he initially appeared. He started throwing up, and stopped responding to her.
“I called 911. I was a mess,” she said.
The 911 call, fielded by veteran firefighter/dispatcher Dominick Maestre, set into motion a first responder chain reaction in which each player was called upon to perform at a peak level to save the life of a little boy bleeding from the brain.
Maestre’s role in the drama was to keep Natasha calm and walk her through the steps she needed to take as an ambulance sped toward her home. He said Saturday that he realized shortly after the 911 call came in that a helicopter might have to be deployed to get Paxton to medical care quickly, so he alerted the Air Methods crew at Twin Cities Medical Center to be on standby.
Braeden Cooper, a Walton County Emergency Medical Service technician and paramedic, took Paxton from the arms of his mother and made the call to deploy the helicopter. A landing zone was established in a field next to the Hammock Bay Community Center and a team that included flight nurse Jodi Landa, flight paramedic Dustin Ross and pilot Rob Greenquist arrived quickly to whisk Paxton and Natasha to Sacred Heart Medical Center Pediatric Hospital in Pensacola.
The advance notice the helicopter team received allowed them to touch base with Sacred Heart, where Paxton is a patient, and notify emergency room doctors there that Paxton would need what Natasha described as “a ton of platelets” to halt bleeding on his brain. Doctors were able to stabilize Paxton without having to perform brain surgery.
“The system worked that day,” Ross said Saturday. “Countless hours had been put in to make this system work, and this is what you would call a perfect scenario. We couldn’t write it down and plan it out and have it work any more smoothly than it did that day.”
Because Paxton is something of a fanatic about all things aviation, Natasha said she was not only heartbroken to see her son unconscious as she rode with him to Pensacola, but disappointed that he would not realize he’d been for a helicopter ride.
“I said, ‘He’s not going to believe he’s flying in a helicopter,'” she said.
Hearing about the boy’s love of flight, Ross organized the Saturday event to take Paxton for a ride. The helicopter team, paramedics and Maestre the dispatcher were all in attendance.
“It’s not very often we see the outcome of anything we do,” said Cooper, the paramedic. “To have an opportunity to stand here with Paxton, it means all the work and stress pays off.”
From all reports and the thumbs up he gave upon landing, Paxton’s second helicopter ride was a great success. He, his mother, and a handful of his newfound friends cruised out over the Gulf of Mexico and even had a wildlife sighting.
“The whole time he was talking, no shyness whatsoever,” said Greenquist, the pilot. “It was a good ride. We found a shark. He enjoyed it.”
Natasha called the event put together by the first responders one of the best days of her life.
“This has been really cool. This has been the hardest year. … This is definitely the highlight,” she said.