Iowa youths help rescue injured woman unable to move in yard

FRUITLAND, Iowa — Two eastern Iowa youths were in the right place at the right time on Tuesday, lending assistance to an older woman who apparently fell in her yard and was unable to move.

Gunner Skidmore and Kohen Chick, of Fruitland, were riding their bicycles toward Muscatine when something looked amiss near a trail, KWQC reported.

“I went to the trail and Kohen was like, ‘You see that lady back there?’ I was like, ‘No,’” Skidmore told the television station. “Then, we went back and looked, and it took a little while to find her, and we found her.

“I said ‘Hey ma’am, are you OK?’ She was like, ‘Yeah, I need help. Call 911.’”

Skidmore said he called his mother because he was unsure if they should approach the woman, KWQC reported.

“She showed up pretty fast and then my mom called 911,” Skidmore told the television station. “(The woman on the ground) didn’t have her phone or water or anything. She was there for like 16-plus hours.”

According to the youths, the woman told them she had been lying on the ground since about 5 p.m. CT on Monday.

“She was like scared,” Chick told KWQC. “You could just tell because like her face, she was covered in all these bugs and stuff.”

The boys believe the woman slipped while feeding her horse. She reportedly told the boys that she had managed to roll from the backyard to the front because she was not getting help, KWQC reported.

The extent of the woman’s injuries was unknown.

The woman was taken to a hospital in Muscatine. Skidmore’s mother has been taking care of the horse while the woman recovers.

Without water and a hot day ahead, it was fortunate the boys happened to pass by and discover the woman in distress.

“A few more hours and she definitely like wouldn’t have made it,” Skidmore told KWQC.

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