RISON - Cleveland County's response to reach a man in the northwest part of the county who was having a medical issue and died at home during the height of last week's ice storm was addressed during the Cleveland County Quorum Court meeting Monday night.
County Judge Jimmy Cummings discussed the incident at the start of the meeting, noting that the death was not directly related to the ice storm.
He said a neighbor of the man went by to check on him at about noon Thursday and found him in medical distress. Cummings said the neighbor made a 911 call to Fordyce recognizing it would be the closest to respond. About 10 minutes after the neighbor arrived, Cummings said the man died in the arms of the neighbor.
Once the call was made to the 911 center in Fordyce, Cummings said Dallas County notified Cleveland County about the emergency, and he tried to put a road crew together to clear trees to get to the residence.
Initially, Cummings said the road crew was going to try to make its way to the scene by taking Pump Station Road, which is a county road north of Kingsland. However, Cummings said it soon became evident there were too many trees to get through, so he made a decision to call Dallas County Judge Chris Stanfield and ask (continued from page 1) about sending a crew from Fordyce to Pinchback Road. Cummings said Stanfield agreed to help and sent a crew from Fordyce northbound up Hwy. 167. However, he said the Dallas County crew encountered several fallen trees as well and it took the crew about 45 minutes to cover the nearly 15-mile distance to the scene.
The man was pronounced dead by the Dallas County coroner, Cummings said, since Cleveland County Coroner Chuck Valentine was blocked by trees along Hwy. 114 and could not respond to the call.
Justice of the Peace Melody Spears criticized the county's response, asking how the Cleveland County Sheriff's Department was able to get to the scene but a county ...
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