A Pike County man involved in an ATV crash in Ralls County, Missouri is healing at home thanks to the quick actions of first responders. 57 year old Jeff Kugler of rural Pearl was getting soil samples with his son in a field near rural Frankfort, Missouri on the evening of April 5th when his ATV overturned. Kugler says he doesn’t remember a time during the whole incident when someone wasn’t there to help him. “I just want to give a huge thank you to all the people that were there. They were just great. The response to it was tremendous. I don’t think there was hardly any time at all that there wasn’t somebody there for me. There wasn’t much time that had past when there were people on the spot. My son told me it was about 11 minutes and there was people there. When you’re out in the middle of nowhere, that’s pretty good response time.”
Kugler was taken by Survival Flight to University of Missouri Hospital in Columbia with serious injuries. He is currently at home with a sore scalp from a deep laceration and broken ribs. He says he’s very fortunate that he was taken care of so quickly. He says some other strangers were riding by and happened to have EMT training to assist with first aid. “There were some kids there in the heat of the moment. We can’t remember their names. They were out there doing some riding around, and one of them had some EMT experience. There were two girls. One of them was there with me while was son was busy on the phone, and she stood right there and didn’t blink an eye or shook a muscle and talked to me and was holding the pressure on the wound to my head. My son had taken off his t-shirt and put it on it to compress the laceration. I had a pretty good cut. It took 7 stitches on the scalp and 17 on the outside just to close it up. The other girl was on another phone talking to my wife. If I could somehow relay to them how much we appreciate what they did, I would. I couldn’t tell you their names or where they were from. “
Despite not getting their names, Kugler says he hopes they are reading this story and wants to personally thank them for their help. The Missouri Highway Patrol was assisted by the Ralls County Sheriff’s Department, Ralls County EMS and Pike County Missouri EMS in taking care of Kugler upon arrival. Kugler says he should be back to full strength once his ribs are healed