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9-year-old saves father's life

By Rose Hooper
Shahyde "He's my little hero," Leoda Mathis said of his 9-year-old son, Shahide, who saved his life when a car he was working under slipped off the jack and landed on his chest. - Herald photo by Rose Hooper Even though 9-year-old Shahide Mathis was scared, he kept his cool, and that clear-headedness saved his dad, Leoda's, life.

As Leoda lay pinned under his 1985 Ford Thunderbird, the gear box pressing against his chest, every second counted.

"My breathing was cut off," said Leoda, who lives on Tathams Creek. "I couldn't have lasted another five minutes. I kept thinking, 'This is it; I'm gone; I'm a dead man... and it will be my own fault.'"

Leoda had done what he had always preached not to do - jacked up his car with nothing but a car jack.

"I kept thinking how many times I had preached never to do that. 'Always support your vehicle with more than a jack,' I must have said a million times. But you know how it is... I was in a hurry," Leoda said.

It was late in the evening, just the beginnings of dusk, when he jacked up his grey Thunderbird to check the oil in the back end. He and Shahide were heading out before day break the next morning to go deer hunting in Georgia. Catching the last rays of sunlight was critical as Leoda slipped under his vehicle.

Suddenly, the jack slipped and the car fell full force on his chest, pressing his rib cage all the way down against his lungs and sucking the breath of life out of him.

"I didn't see the car fall, but I heard Dad scream," said Shahide, whose quick thinking and quick legs brought instant help for his near-death dad. "I knew I couldn't lift the car up, so I ran fast, fast as I could, to the neighbors and hollered, 'Come help my dad!'" said Shahide, a third-grader at Fairview Elementary.

You know how sometimes things just happen for a reason. Call it serendipity or whatever, but the forces were working in Leoda's favor that evening.

Just that very day their neighbor Mildred Moss had purchased a floor jack for some repair work on her house. Her son happened to be there when Shahide came running over, so the two males ripped the jack out of its box and rushed back to Leoda. Working together, the two used the floor jack to raise the car off Leoda's crushed body.

By this time an ambulance crew had arrived in response to their 911 distress call. They transported Leoda to Harris Regional Hospital, where he remained for three days.

"It was a stupid mistake on my part, one that almost cost me my life," said Leoda, rubbing his right arm, which is still a little paralyzed. "If it had not been for Shahide, I would have died for sure. He is my little hero."

Back to Archive: 11/14/02.