More than three years after he was shot in the line of duty and later forced to retire from the Kernersville Police Department as a result, Sean Houle is once again being hailed as a hero.
He spoke with Scope News about the experience and how it impacted not only the man he helped save but also himself.
“It’s been tough these past three years because, you know, law enforcement, that was my life,” he explained. “And, you know, I poured my heart and soul into doing that job.”
Although he has relied on God and his family to help him through that period, Houle acknowledged that it has been tough to “figure out what’s next” in his life.
That search for a sense of purpose led him to become a volunteer with the Walnut Cove Fire Department and work for the Stokes County EMS.
“Actually just getting back to my roots, really, because before I was a police officer, I did both of those things,” he said.
All of his experience prepared him for the emergency situation he would encounter while vacationing in North Myrtle Beach, S.C., on Independence Day.
“With the background of the retired cop and then plus the fire and EMS … your brain sort of just gets in this routine of constantly always looking for things [that are] not right,” Houle explained.
Already on alert due to particularly rough rip currents in the area, he was quick to notice a small crowd gathering near where he and his family were sitting on the beach.
“I look a little closer and I see what looks like a man lying on his back in the sand, and he’s not moving,” Houle continued. “[My] senses are kind of perked right there, like that doesn’t quite look right. And so I get up out of my chair and I start sort of meandering off that direction to get a better look or a closer look to see, you know, what the deal is here — if there actually is something wrong.”
Upon noticing what appeared to be a woman administering chest compressions on the man, he rushed to the scene.
“I get to her and the man is blue, very blue, hypoxic,” he recalled. “He’s not breathing. He has no pulse. And I drop and I take over his airway while she does compressions, you know, so CPR.”
Houle made sure to credit others on the scene for assisting in the life-saving effort, which ultimately proved successful.
“On the second set of breaths that I gave him, he begins to aspirate fluid — like obviously seawater, foam and things start coming up out of his mouth,” he said. “And I immediately tilt, you know, roll him to the side to let all that fall out so he doesn’t choke on it.”
The man then began breathing, albeit with “very minimal and shallow respirations,” on his own, Houle said, and a lifeguard was able to find a pulse.
From there, the man was given oxygen and transported to an area hospital, though Houle admitted he was not completely optimistic about the outcome.
“It wasn’t necessarily that I believed he was going to die, but I mean, I felt like it could go either way,” he said. “He was an older fellow. He did not look good. And, you know, I knew it could go either way.”
Houle said he and his wife kept thinking about the man and his family throughout the night, but soon received an unexpected surprise.
“The next day, we go out to the beach, and we went out to pretty much the same spot that we were in the day before,” he said. “And I see a lifeguard walking down the beach who I recognized as being one that was part of our group that day.”
The lifeguard told Houle that the man he helped save the previous day was on the beach just a short distance away.
“I said, ‘Are you serious?’” Houle recalled. “I didn’t believe him. I was like, ‘Are you serious right now?’ And he said, ‘Man, I’m so serious.’”
Others who aided in the life-saving effort were also gathered around, resulting in an unexpected celebration.
“His wife was there, his daughter was there, all his grandkids,” Houle said. “We have this big reunion with him, just hugging, and they’re thanking us, like constantly, you know, thank you so much for everything you guys did.”
It was a particularly meaningful experience for Houle, who said that in his line of work he is not often able to witness the result of his efforts.
“You have the patient that you’re dealing with in the moment, you do everything you can for them, you drop them off at the hospital, and you hope and pray that they’re going to make a recovery — but you don’t often see, you know, what all that looks like,” he said. “So, to be able to see that man having fully recovered a day later, standing on the beach, the very same beach that he just drowned at, with his wife, his daughter, his grandkids, it’s just, it was truly a miraculous thing.”
The incident only cemented Houle’s belief that “things don’t happen by accident.”
Referencing his own near-death experience in 2021, he continued: “I shouldn’t be here at all. I should not be alive. And, you know, I had … a severed carotid artery, like literally severed. Not just nicked, but it was severed. And I managed to live through that, and so few people in this world can claim that. … I don’t believe in coincidences.”
Not only did Houle highlight the fact that the man he encountered on the beach last week could have been swept anywhere but a location close to where people were gathered and capable of assisting, he also noted that his family did not initially intend to take their vacation at that beach.
“The crazy thing is we attempted to book Ocean Lakes campground, which is where we normally stay,” he explained. “It’s at a different part. That’s not North Myrtle. And we attempted to book that campground last year at the end of our trip. A year out, it was already booked up. And so because it was booked up, we ended up picking Apache, and that’s how we ended up there. So we weren’t even supposed to be on North Myrtle at Apache campground. But that’s where we ended up.”
Houle credited an “amazing team effort” and divine intervention for a happy ending to this potentially tragic story.
“Instead of sitting here talking about another rip current drowning, we get to talk about a story of survival when so often, that’s not the case. So it was an amazing thing.”
Copyright 2024 Informed Media Group LLC. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed without express written consent.
scopenewsonline.com 