A common thread ran through the videos highlighting the recipients of the 2024 Red Cross Heroes awards Sept. 10.
Several of the heroes didn’t think of themselves that way, but thanked those who they did consider in that category.
For 13 years, the American Red Cross Augusta Chapter has honored people from various walks of life for going above and beyond.
“This year’s breakfast is truly one of my favorite events because it really does capture the essence of our mission,” said Susan Everitt, the Augusta Chapter’s executive director at the breakfast event at First Baptist Church of Augusta. “Heroes are really ordinary people who step up and do extraordinary things.”
Nine people were recognized in different categories. The winners shared their stories through the videos.
The Military Hero is Stephen Thompson, a Navy veteran.
A former homeless vet, Thompson knows what it’s like to have no place to turn; now he’s the one several veterans have turned to when they had no hope and considered suicide. He knows where to connect veterans to a variety of resources in the community, and he makes sure they get them.
“Every day, I’m taking a veteran somewhere,” he said.
Tina Watts received the Nurse Hero award.
She’s celebrating her second wedding anniversary this week because she knows CPR, but never thought she’d have to put it to use in her own home.
One morning, her husband suffered cardiac arrest. For seven minutes, she administered CPR until the paramedics arrived.
Her husband received a pacemaker and is healthy, but had she not known CPR, he might not have made it.
Mad Hatter Farms, a nonprofit horse and farm sanctuary in Harlem which also operates Cassie’s Care Farm for special needs, received the Spirit of the Red Cross award.
Through her video, Jill Marier shared how the organization came about through two special children – Jojo, who had special needs after an illness and extensive brain damage, and Cassie, who was born medically fragile and had extreme medical conditions requiring 24-hour care.
Marier channeled her grief of losing both children into the care farm which is a space where those in wheelchairs can be around farm animals.
Chad Cheek, Richmond County’s deputy coroner, received the Animal Hero award after his November 2023 rescue of Lucas, who has since become the pet of administrative assistant, Alyse Witten.
Cheek investigated barking behind his office one afternoon and discovered the dog on an island in the Canal behind the coroner’s office.
He and members of the fire department tried to build a bridge to the dog and then attempted to lasso him, but that spooked him, and he jumped into the water. Cheek then had to walk across a large drainpipe to fish the dog out of the water.
Dr. Vasu Lakkimsetti received the Water Rescue Hero Award.
A physician at the Charlie Norwood VA Medical Center, Lakkimsetti was riding his bike near the Savannah Rapids Pavilion when he heard someone screaming “My boy, my boy.”
A child had fallen into the water
Lakkimsetti found him and pulled him out after several minutes in the freezing water.
“He was limp,” he said.
Lakkimsetti did chest compressions until emergency personnel arrived. The child survived.
Caitlyn Burner, the president and founder of Augusta University’s Gold Star Family Student Organization, received the Good Samaritan Youth Hero Award
Burner was 6 when her father was killed while serving in Iraq in 2011.
The organization she founded brings awareness to Gold Star Families – a Gold Star Family is one that has experienced a loss of a loved one–an immediate family member – who died as the result of active-duty military service. It also helps raise funds for Children of Fallen Patriots.
Burner said members don’t have to be a Gold Star Family; they only have to be a student at Augusta University.
Jodie Saverence and Bill Hutcheson, who work at Savannah River Nuclear Solutions, noticed there was something wrong with one of their co-workers and took action, garnering them the Good Samaritan Adult Hero award.
The co-worker showed up late for work saying he’d overslept. But it was after lunch, and Saverance called in Hutcheson to see what he thought.
Hutcheson asked how the co-worker was and all he got back was a blank stare.
“He was looking but he didn’t see me,” Hutcheson said.
It turns out the co-worker needed medical attention for sepsis.
We see everyone almost every day. We feel like family or friends,” Hutcheson said.
Lt. James Thomas, who has been with the Columbia County Fire Department for 28 years, started turning push-ups into fundraising dollars about five years ago.
The first year he pledged to do 10 push-ups for every dollar raised in a Facebook post. The first day he got $500 in donations, making him wonder if he was going to regret his decision, he said.
He ended up raising $2,500 and doing 25,000 push-ups.
Since then he’s raised about $13,000 for charities such as the Burn Foundation, Purpose Center, Smiles for Shay, Bridge Builders and A Better Belize.
Thomas was the EMT/Firefighter Hero.
The Medical Hero Award went to Jane Echols, Doctors Hospital’s vice president of burn services.
“Working in a burn center is probably the most humbling and hardest work you’ll ever do,” said Echols who started working at Doctors in 1988. She’s spent most of her career there.
Echols got emotional when she talked about the people she worked with.
“The fact that my team thinks I’m a hero is amazing because I they think they are the heroes,” she said.
Charmain Z. Brackett, the publisher of Augusta Good News and Inspiring: Women of Augusta, has covered Augusta’s news for more than 35 years and is a Georgia Press Association award winner. Reach her at charmain@augustagoodnews.com. Sign up for the newsletter here.
