Boy makes a life saving phone call

July 01--Several weeks after Hayden, a Central Elementary student, started his summer vacation, he spotted his maternal grandmother, Julie Lavimodiere, lying on the bathroom floor of his family's house on Cedar Street coughing up large quantities of blood.

"I was scared," said Hayden, who was alone with his grandmother.

Still, Hayden maintained his poise, immediately picking up his family's smartphone and calling his paternal grandmother, Leslie Michael, who was at her home on Depot Street, more than a mile away.

"Grandma Julie is puking up blood. Can you come quick?" Hayden said.

Leslie Michael told her grandson she would be right over but urged him to call 911.

Hayden made the 911 call, told the dispatcher about his maternal grandmother and gave his address. An ambulance crew from the La Grande Fire Department arrived minutes later. The responders found Hayden standing in front of his house ready to direct the responders to where his grandma Julie was.

The crew arrived without a second to spare.

"I had bled so much I was almost dead," Julie Lavimodiere said. "I had the minimum amount of blood you could have before there was no more of me."

Leslie Michael, who arrived at the house 3-1/2 minutes after Hayden called, offered her grandson words of reassurance while the ambulance crew worked feverishly.

"She told me that Grandma Julie was not going to die," said Hayden, who will enter third grade at Central this fall and is the son of Terry and Krystle Michael.

So grave was Lavimodiere's condition that a second ambulance crew was called in to help stabilize her. Lavimodiere later was rushed to Grande Ronde Hospital and then flown via a LifeFlight helicopter to St. Alphonsus Medical Center in Boise, Idaho, where she underwent emergency surgery for three holes in her gastrointestinal tract responsible for her internal bleeding. Today Lavimodiere, who was hospitalized for more than a week, is back home and well on the road to a full recovery.

For the complete story, please see Wednesday's edition of The Observer.

Copyright 2015 - The Observer, La Grande, Ore.