Family meets first responders at Memorial who helped save their daughter

SAVANNAH, Ga. (WTOC) - It’s something first responders say they don’t always get after treating a patient - the chance to meet them again and get an update on their recovery.

That rare chance brought to life on the rooftop of a Savannah hospital Tuesday.

Tuesday, the West family met the medical flight crew that treated their kids in December. The dad, Stratton, driving the family to a fireman’s event when another car hit them head on.

They tragically lost their youngest daughter. Their other daughter, Hendryx, was badly injured and flown to Memorial Health where she faced emergency brain and skull surgeries.

Months later, everyone WTOC spoke with says they’re just glad they got a chance to see that little girl well on her road to recovery.

“We’re only with them for a short time and then we don’t get any updates most of the time, sometimes we do, but most of the time we don’t and we always wonder how they’re doing and how they’ve healed, so it’s just fantastic,” said flight nurse Jennifer Brew.

“I started full time EMS in 2015. And this is the first time I’ve gotten the chance to see a patient like this,” said flight paramedic, Andrew Dantzler.

“It means everything to us, really. Everybody here did an amazing job with her, and you know, helped us by helping her, and it just means a great deal to us to be able to come back here and share this moment with everybody and get a chance to meet everybody who laid their hands on her and helped her through a tough time in her life. There’s was all kinds of worry and questions and stuff but as she showed her healing progressing and stuff, you know, it started to feel more of a sense of hope. You know, obviously during that time we lost our other little girl, and so we were dealing with both the joy of her healing but then the pain of losing our daughter, our youngest daughter,” said Stratton West.

“I mean we got to see that we actually made a difference and like I’ve said repeatedly - we don’t always get to get the updates that we get to see that we’ve made this difference,” said Jennifer Brew.”

“We’re hoping to get her back to school for kindergarten in the fall, and you know, she’s a little different now than she was before the accident, but she’s so happy all the time,” said West.

It wasn’t just the flight crew on hand.

Hendryx and her parents had the chance to meet the whole team of first responders who worked to save her life.