Saved by fate
Local hero honored by Red Cross

By Lori Colbo, KP News

Webster’s dictionary defines a hero as “a person of great courage and spirit… any admirable or highly regarded man.” The Red Cross program, Real Heroes, recently honored Rick Coovert, a Key Peninsula resident, as a bona fide hero for keeping a cool head and acting quickly to help save the life of Phil Radcliffe during a very serious saw accident in December 2006. Coovert received the State Farm Good Neighbor of the Year award from the Red Cross.

Phil Radcliffe (right) and Rick Coovert are heroes to each other, though Coovert was officially recognized as one by the Red Cross. Photo by Karina Whitmarsh

Many may remember Radcliffe’s saw accident in which he was caught in his saw and cut from sternum to midleg. His intestines were exposed as well. What many didn’t hear about that accident is the calm, timely way that Coovert, who was visiting with Radcliffe that day, responded to the accident. Coovert took action quickly by turning off the saw, which to this day he does not remember doing.

Trained and certified in first aid many times over, Coovert quickly assessed Radcliffe’s condition. “I saw more of Phil than I cared too,” he says.

He looked for arterial bleeding, which he could not find. Actually, according to him, there was not a lot of profuse bleeding. He sat Radcliffe down and went to call 911. While he was making the call, Coovert looked out the window to see Radcliffe heading toward his shop in a golf cart. Coovert went out to him, got him out of the cart and laid him on a couch in the shop, then went out to meet the ambulance since Radcliffe had changed locations on the property.

“If Rick had not been there, I would have laid down and died,” Radcliffe says.

Coovert is convinced to this day that his being at Radcliffe’s on that particular day, at that particular time was divinely arranged. “I am convinced that I was supposed to be there,” he says.

The two men have been friends since they were 5 years old. Both lived in Tacoma and went to school together for many years. Radcliffe’s family owned property out near Silverbow Farm since the early 1900s. In the ’50s, Coovert’s family bought the property adjacent to Radcliffe’s. Phil moved there in 1965 and Coovert came out about 10 years ago.

Coovert has high praise for Radcliffe, as he helped Coovert’s parents tirelessly when they lived on the property and Coovert’s father had Alzheimer’s. Coovert lived 25 miles away at the time and couldn’t get out there as much as he wanted to. Radcliffe filled in and Coovert is full of gratitude, saying, “I’m glad in a way that I could be there for Phil after all he did for my parents.” In his mind, Radcliffe is the real hero.

Radcliffe was hospitalized for 115 days and has had 28 surgeries, which included cutting out 18 inches of damaged intestines and many skin grafts. Today he is fit and healthy and gives all the praise to the Harborview Medical Center trauma team and all the doctors and nurses who helped him.

“I can’t speak highly enough of Harborview and their staff,” he says. When the doctor in charge saw Radcliffe’s injuries, he did not think his patient would make it. But Radcliffe defied all the odds and survived.

“I think this is about his phenomenal will to live,” Coovert says. Radcliffe is now aptly called “the miracle man” by all the doctors and staff at Harborview, and that he is. Coovert, on the other hand, is called the hero who saved the day, though he is not comfortable with that title. Both are men of “great courage and spirit, admirable and highly regarded.” That they were meant to be together on that fateful day cannot be denied.