If you all remember, we have been fighting to keep our volunteer ambulance alive for the past year or so. People keep telling me all the time, “Do not let it go; fight for it all you can, because time is the most important aspect to saving a life or saving someone from a more serious injury.”

We recently had a bike accident. A gentlemen was riding his bike on a 40-mile trip from home in Dewitt to his camp on Duck Lake. John Batizfalvi had just called his wife moments earlier from his cell phone, telling her to have a cold beer ready because he was almost home.

He turned off Peach Blow Road onto Lake Road and he thinks he was traveling about 30 miles per hour when he lost control of his bike and went over the handlebars and into the ditch head first. John broke the vertebrae in his neck in three places. According to his doctors, this is a very similar injury to the one suffered by famous actor Christopher Reeve that left him paralyzed.

I spoke with John earlier this week, and he is walking and has a long 8 to 10 months of recovery ahead of him. He is very lucky and says he owes a great deal to those first three people that arrived to help him.

John's sister-in-law, Sandra, told me the doctors told her these are the people that saved John from being paralyzed because they did a very good job stabilizing him at the scene.

They are our hometown heroes, who do it time and time again without pay and without the pat on the back. I truly don't know what drives them. It's the people we all don't realize are there until we need them.

John and Sandra both would like to thank Tonya Bennett, Barry Rubenau and Jim Burke and everyone else that had a part in helping him. John remembers Tonya holding his head in place and talking to him to keep him stable. He remembers grabbing and squeezing Barry's arm to relieve the pain.

In fact, the family is so grateful they have donated $33,500 to the Conquest Ambulance, and they've assured me they will help in the future to keep the ambulance going because they believe getting to the scene fast matters.

I just want to say great job to these three people. This success must be the gratitude they get for all that hard work.

Charlie Knapp is supervisor for the town of Conquest.