Lineman Reunites With Near-Drowning Victim 1 Year After Heroic Rescue
On an ordinary August day, as the sun disappeared below the horizon, Coosa Valley Electric Cooperative lineman Matt Jeffers encountered a situation that put his skills and training to the ultimate test.
This time, though, he wasn’t perched high atop a utility pole. He was on vacation, a world away from the familiar hum of power lines.
But Jeffers did not know the full effects of his labor until recently — nearly an entire year after his heroism was needed.
Safety Off-Duty
The Jeffers were vacationing at a family beach house in August 2022. For Matt, this vacation began as a break from the high-voltage wires and the constant need to be on standby. But life threw an unexpected challenge.
The evening before they were scheduled to voyage home, Matt, his son Austin and Austin’s girlfriend, Jolie, were relaxing by the pool when they heard a commotion in the distance.
Concerned, they located where it was coming from. Peering over a 6-foot privacy fence into the neighbors’ backyard, they saw a lady with her back to them, sitting on the edge of the pool — her feet in the water as her body appeared to rock back and forth. About that time, the lady screamed, “Help!”
Instinctively, they all jumped the fence. They realized the lady had exhausted herself trying to pull her unconscious boyfriend, Donald Carrington, out of the pool. Austin raced to rescue Carrington.
Carrington was not breathing, not responsive and had no pulse. As the girlfriend called 911, Matt began to perform CPR — just as he had been trained to do countless times on the job.
After the 2nd round of compressions, water spewed from Carrington’s mouth. Matt rolled Carrington on his side to make sure he did not choke, and they finally find a pulse.
Eventually, the ambulance arrived and took Carrington to the hospital. Not knowing how long he had been without oxygen, Matt left not knowing if his efforts saved the stranger.
But if the Jeffers hadn’t been there, he assuredly would have died.
“It was a God thing,” says Matt. The next day, Matt and his family headed back home to Alabama, where the outcome and even Carrington’s name were unknown — at least for almost a year.
Discovering New Life
In the spring of 2023, the Jeffers’ family beach house flooded from a busted water heater. Since no one lived there full time, the neighbor Carrington informed the Jeffers family.
Serendipitously, Carrington — a carpenter by trade — also began remodeling the family beach house after the flood. Carrington and Jeffers finally got to meet, 1 year later in August, when Matt traveled down for a group fishing trip in Panama City Beach.
The story of Matt Jeffers heroic act serves as a powerful reminder that a lineworker's dedication to preparedness and responsibility doesn’t end when the workday is done.
“Becoming a lineman and being in this field, it comes with a prestige,” Jeffers says, reflecting on his experience and 17 years as a lineman. “There’s not always someone out there to tell you what to do. Being prepared and the training, it helps. It was like 2nd nature doing it.”
It’s a lesson that transcends the wires and reminds us that heroes can emerge from the most unexpected places, even during a vacation.