Doug Dickens, Ricky Roberson, Valerie Reid, Mark Sullivan, David Hendrix and Jay Gazaway may be emergency medical technicians and paramedics by trade, but Katie Tucker knows them as Jake’s angels. They saved her son’s life almost three years ago when he was just 10 months old.

On March 8, 2006, Jason Tucker, Katie’s husband, was driving Jake from their home in Whitesburg to a doctor’s appointment when a dog ran in front of the car. Jason tried to avoid the dog and lost control of the sports utility vehicle when he hit the curb.

“The tire just went off the road just a very little bit, and it pulled it, and there was a tree sitting not three feet off the road,” Katie said.

The SUV slammed into the tree, badly injuring Jason. He couldn’t work for a year and still has problems with his ankle “ but her son got the worst of it. Jake’s neck was broken, his spinal cord was stretched and both legs were broken.

When EMT Doug Dickens arrived on the scene, he was off duty from the Douglas County Fire Department, but stopped anyway to see if he could help. He found Jake not breathing and with no pulse.

“He got the child out of the car seat,” said paramedic Ricky Roberson. “By doing that he basically opened up the baby’s airway.”

Emergency workers were able to get Jake into the van and start working with him, Roberson said.

Once he started breathing again, they were able to transfer him to a helicopter and he was taken to Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta at Scottish Rite.

“I wasn’t sure about the outcome,” Roberson said. “Anytime the heart stops beating from a traumatic injury, whether it be a car wreck or a gunshot wound or a stabbing or anything like that, the chances of survival are very, very slim.”

But Jake beat the odds. He was in the hospital for six months enduring surgery to fuse his spine back together and absolute bed rest while he healed. His parents were always at the hospital and his sister visited him on the weekends.

“We never left his side,” Katie said. “All he did was stare at the ceiling, because he couldn’t move and they couldn’t move him.”

He spent his first birthday in the hospital and that was a day his mom will never forget. That was the day they told her Jake would probably not survive his injuries.

The nurses rearranged Jake’s hospital room to put his bed by the window so he could see outside. That’s when he started to show some improvement, his mom said.

“That made a huge difference in him,” Katie said. “It was like he maybe perked up and, you know, he started smiling.”

That next week, he started fighting, she said.

When he was released from the hospital, in an unusual circumstance, the emergency workers who had rescued Jake and Jason from the vehicle were able to bring Jake home from the hospital.

“It was the same people that (were) involved with the initial wreck. We actually went and got him and brought him home,” Roberson said. “Generally we don’t do hospital transfers. We don’t go to a hospital and bring a patient home. We’re basically a county 911 provider.”

They even have a difficult time keeping tabs on patients once they leave their care. But this time, they did. Katie has kept in touch with her son’s angels, even attending the banquet where they were honored by Douglas County for saving Jake. All of their names are listed on a brick on the Walk of Honor at the Douglas County Courthouse for saving Jake and another young boy in back-to-back emergency calls.

Just last week, Katie took Jake to the firehouse for a reunion.

“I feel like they’re why he’s still with me,” she said.

Now Jake is paralyzed from the neck down and dependent on a ventilator to breath, but he had no brain injuries, Katie said. He attends prekindergarten at Central Elementary School where his teacher Alecia Moore said he is a joy to have in class.

“He started in April, the end of April last year,” Moore said. “He is always happy, always smiling. He enjoys coming to school.”

Jake has been out of school since Dec. 8, suffering from a broken leg, and Moore and his classmates miss him, she said.

Katie said Jake’s smart as a whip.

“He has the best imagination, the best personality, the best outlook,” she said. “He’s a tough little cookie. He’s been through so much and he is so strong.”

Jake has been able to charm many people with his sense of humor and his sunny personality.

Donna Billstrom is his nurse and takes care of Jake’s physical needs while his parents work.

“The family is really just a special family the way they have stuck together taking care of everything for this child to make sure he has a good normal life,” Billstrom said. “He’s a remarkable child.”