The Delta came together to help a couple of men from Hattiesburg Monday after their pickup truck went out of control on U.S. 49 near Shellmound.
The Mississippi Highway Patrol reported a Ford F150 pickup truck driven by Keith Frierson, 64, with his son, Michael Frierson, 35, in the passenger seat tried to pass a car southbound on the highway. The truck’s left front tire left the road surface, and the truck flipped and rolled numerous times before coming to a rest on its wheels.
Baylor Bryant, a pilot with Aviation Services in Schlater, was driving a few cars behind the Frierson truck and saw it roll.
“I just saw a vehicle flipping and stuff flying out all over the place,” he said. Bryant pulled over and ran to the truck to help. He said Michael Frierson crawled out of the passenger side window and ran around the truck to help his father, who was bleeding heavily from a badly damaged arm. Frierson took his shirt off and applied pressure; then Bryant pulled off his belt and said, “Here, use this.”
About then Robert Toomey, president of Guaranty Bank, came on the scene, along with Warren Flynt, a friend of the Friersons from Hattiesburg who had been hunting ducks with them in Schlater.
“You know, the Delta,” Toomey said. “I talked with Warren for one minute, and we knew a lot of the same people. Their phones were smashed in the wreck, so we used my phone to call their family.”
In the meantime, Bryant stayed with Keith Frierson to keep him calm and awake as they waited for the ambulance to arrive.
“It was the son who was the real hero in this,” Bryant said.
Paramedics took Michael Frierson to Greenwood Leflore Hospital as Keith Frierson was airlifted to the University of Mississippi Medical Center in Jackson, where part of his arm had to be amputated.
One of the crates Bryant had seen flying from the back of the Friersons’ truck held their 2-year-old yellow Lab, Gypsy. Flynt said Keith Frierson has been training the dog, which was a companion to his wife. The trip to Schlater was planned to get the dog some real field experience hunting ducks.
With the Friersons taken away by ambulance, the crate was found, but the dog was gone.
Flynt said Toomey began calling people to hunt for the dog, and Bryant helped look until he had to go to work spraying fields.
“Tons of people came out to help look for that dog,” Flynt said.
When his work was done, Bryant said, he flew back over the scene and could see people were still looking. He found tracks the dog had made and followed them to the river where he spotted Gypsy. He called Toomey and then flew circles over the dog until people on the ground got to her.
“It was a blessing,” Flynt said. “It’s horrible he lost a section of his arm, but he didn’t lose his life. And his son’s OK, and the dog’s OK.”
•Contact Gavin Maliska at 581-7235 or gmaliska@gwcommonwealth.com.
