Four residents honored for saving deputy's life

Cherokee County Sheriff Bill Blanton (standing, center) and Deputy Ronnie Painter (in wheelchair) honored hometown heroes (from left) Shane Seals, Michael Crook, and Patsy and Chuck Martin for pulling the deputy from his patrol car as it was catching fire. The Cherokee County Sheriff's Office and Deputy Ronnie Painter took time Wednesday to honor four heroes credited with saving the deputy's life.

Shane Seals, Michael Crook and Chuck and Patsy Martin were presented with a plaque honoring them for risking their own lives to save another.

The four Cherokee County residents were first on scene following a head-on collision involving Deputy Ronnie Painter and 19-year-old Darrell Dean Huskey Jr. of Shelby.

"I would just like to thank them for being there and stopping and getting me out when they did," Painter said during the ceremony. "They are definitely heroes."

Painter's wife Shelly said the hands of the Lord were protecting her husband on Sept. 4.

"I firmly believe in guardian angels and I believe everyone of them is a guardian angel," she said. "This has changed our perspective. We're never too busy to take time for the things you were too busy for before. It's amazing how everybody in the sheriff's office has pulled together. I don't think people realize what kind of family the sheriff's office is, as well as other agencies."

Chuck and Patsy Martin didn't want any credit for what they did to help Painter.

"It's a miracle of God. God was watching over him and all of us," Patsy Martin recalled. "I honestly was scared to death. I knew (Chuck) wasn't leaving till he got (Ronnie) out."

"I'm glad God gave us the grace to get him out," Chuck Martin said.

Lance Cpl. Josef Robinson of the S.C. Highway Patrol said Huskey passed a vehicle and failed to return to the proper lane. His vehicle struck Painter's 2005 Ford Crown Victoria head-on.

Huskey died shortly after the accident at Upstate Carolina Medical Center.

Painter said his left arm is doing a lot better, and for the first time since the wreck he was able to stand on his left foot last week. He is attending therapy three times a week and may receive crutches in as many as two weeks. And in about five more weeks, doctors are planning to remove pins and screws from his right foot, allowing him to apply pressure on that foot, he said.

Painter has been a full-time sheriff's deputy for about six

months and was a reserve officer prior to that. He serves as assistant chief at the Draytonville McKowns Mountain Volunteer Fire Department.