Honorees

← Back to directory

Year Honored
1996
Honoree
Michael R Jackson
Agency
Mid-South Ambulance Service
Agency City
Smithfield
Agency State
NC
Last Call
2/9/95
Cause of Death
Ambulance Involved MVC
Biography
On February 9, 1995, Michael Ray Jackson and Lisa Langston, EMS personnel of Mid South Ambulance Service, of Smithfield, N. C., were making a routine trip to Chapel Hill to pick up a patient.<br /> <br /> On Interstate 40 in Wake County, during morning rush hour, they came upon a minor accident that had happened minutes earlier. A tractor trailer had rear-ended a car that had slowed for traffic. The collision pushed the car into a van. No one was injured in the accident.<br /> <br /> Michael, with paramedic Langston, stopped alongside the car in the adjacent lane. After checking the vehicles for injured patients, Jackson walked in front of the ambulance to retrieve warning markers when the tractor trailer rolled down an incline and into the lane where the ambulance was parked, pushing the ambulance forward.<br /> <br /> Jackson was run over by both vehicles and died instantly. Dozens of law-enforcement officers, rescue squad workers and fire fighters - as well as hundreds of family members and friends - attended the funeral. Michael, a former 9-1-1 dispatcher and member of the Smithfield and Four Oaks rescue squads, had recently graduated from the local community college law-enforcement training program.<br /> <br /> He was a special deputy with the Johnston County Sheriff's Department, a training position.<br /> <br /> Michael was remembered as a "jack-of-all trades" who wore many badges, emblems and patches with a "heart full of life and love."<br /> <br /> His wife, Shannon, accepted a North Carolina Award for Bravery and Heroism from Governor Jim Hunt in June, 1995.<br /> <br /> Honored 1996