A boy is recovering after an accident in Lake Sherwood that surprised his rescuers. 

“It’s a beautiful thing that this boy’s alive,” said Dennis Taylor, a neighbor who was the first adult on the scene.

The accident happened about 5 p.m., Nov. 9. Taylor said the boy, 14, fell off a bluff while roughhousing with a friend. The friend showed up at a house where Taylor was. The boy who came to the door said, “my friend is dying,” Taylor recalled. 

The boy had fallen some 60 to 80 feet down the emergency spillway for a lake. Taylor saw him and thought, “How could anyone fall from there and live?” 

Taylor, a volunteer firefighter, found his way to the boy and stayed with him. Marthasville Ambulance District and the New Melle Fire District arrived soon after. 

Rescuers were anticipating severe injuries, head trauma, hypothermia, broken bones.   

New Melle Fire Capt. Mike Colbert said the boy was conscious and talking to rescuers but this wasn’t an ordinary call. The challenge was finding a way to get him out. 

Ropes, a rescue basket and a determined response team made the bluff rescue possible. ARCH Air Medical Service Inc. got the boy from Lake Sherwood to a hospital.  

New Melle Fire District Chief Rick Massey said, “Everybody did a good job. The firefighters did a good job. The ambulance district did a good job. ARCH did a good job. It’s important to get people like that to the hospital right away. Everything worked well in this instance.” 

“He shouldn’t have made that fall and been alive,” Colbert added. 

“He could have been much worse. In all reality he might not have survived that fall,” said Massey.

All three men said impeccable luck and timing saved the boy’s life. 

“It was definitely a God-thing that everything lined up like it did,” Taylor said. “If it hadn’t happened like it did, it would have been a bad outcome.”

“I’m not sure about a Christmas miracle, but someone was watching over him,” Massey said. “He better go play the lottery.”