Blake Harmon owes his life to a stranger who stopped along a dark road last fall and kept him breathing after he was thrown from a sports-utility vehicle that flipped over.
Harmon, 17, and six other Grayslake High School students were in the SUV on Nov. 12 when the driver swerved to avoid a deer on Drury Lane near Rollins Road in unincorporated Grayslake.
The SUV pitched over when the driver tried to regain control, authorities said.
Gerry Jenich, 46, of Grayslake hadn’t worked with a trauma patient in more than a decade. But when he drove up to the accident scene while heading home, his years as a paramedic and helicopter medivac nurse kicked in. He got busy.
Harmon was lying in a ditch about 30 feet from the road.
Twice, the unconscious Harmon stopped breathing. And twice, Jenich brought him back to life by rubbing his sternum, which forced the teen to gasp for air.
Relatives say Harmon, who suffered a brain injury and continues to undergo rehabilitation, still has a higher than 4.0 grade-point average after making up his finals this year.
“It was Mr. Jenich. If he didn’t come upon Blake, he would have been dead,” said Harmon’s mom, Kim. “I don’t know how to repay the man or whoever sent him there that night, because Blake would have died at the scene.”
Jenich, the chief executive officer of NuCare Services, a Chicago-based nursing home and rehabilitation company, was named a hero last month by the Illinois General Assembly. The Grayslake Fire Department also honored him.
Jenich said those honors are misdirected.
“There are people that do this every day–firefighters, police officers, paramedics,” he said. “And they don’t get the recognition for being those people’s angels or heroes that I have gotten.”
Jenich credits the doctors who have helped Harmon regain at least 95 percent of his potential after the brain injury.
“It’s a whole team of people who have brought this kid back from the edge of death,” he said.
Harmon’s mom won’t be dissuaded. She knows a hero when she sees one.
“I can’t thank him enough,” she said.
