BLADEN COUNTY, N.C. (WECT/NN) – Jail inmates joined together to save a supervisor’s life in eastern North Carolina.
The three men were honored by the Bladen County Sheriff Thursday, with a “lifesaving award.”
Franklin Edens Junior, Rosendo Morales-Sanchez, and Roy William Smith were picking up trash Wednesday when they saw their supervisor stumbling.
No one knew at the time, the man was having a stroke.
The inmates rushed over to help, calling 9-1-1, quick actions that likely saved James Smith’s life.
“I mean, it was just more of a natural instinct, seeing somebody that I consider a friend, down,” Edens said, “He was kind of stumbling in the ditch like he was losing his balance. And from there he like stumbled, he fell over in the ditch.”
Smith added, “Well, if, if that was my father laying beside the road, I would want somebody to help him instead of running off.”
The supervisor, James Smith, survived. He was in an intensive care unit. A relative says Smith is recovering and resting.
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