Valiant truck driver receives medal, key to city

The Wagstaff family will forever remember Aug. 1, 2017. That was the day they nearly lost Octavia Wagstaff. While driving on U.S. Highway 80 near French Creek at 1:48 p.m., her vehicle left roadway, missed the guard rail, and quickly began submerging in water.

“As I was driving down the highway, I’m in the right lane. She probably was maybe a good truck and a half in front of me. So, when the truck passed by me in the left lane, he cleared me at least by a truck and a half. He come straight over on her. As he hit her, he caught her back bumper, kind of went down her driver’s door and she spun around,” Barry Williams, a truck driver for New Line Transport/Cemex, said of how the scene played out. “She went around the guard rail. She missed the guard rail, but she went airborne. As she went airborne, she went straight down and the car twisted around.”

Her brother, Robert, believes it was by the providence of God Williams was in the area. To the great appreciation of the Wagstaff family, Williams wasted little time responding to the situation.

“As I pulled over, I kind of stopped in the middle of the road a little bit. I ran to the side and looked. I stood there probably about 15, 20 seconds trying to see if she was going to come out of the car,” Williams said. “As I saw that she wasn’t coming out, it looked like she was taking her last breath. So, it was either me taking a chance and running way back around the other side or jumping. So, I just jumped in. I wasn’t scared of the water because I knew how to swim.”

“If he had had to go around the side of the bridge and come down, she’d have never made it, so he jumped over,” Robert relayed. “We are grateful. Most people would pass by, look, and keep driving.”

Once Williams was into the water, the job got especially difficult as the task of freeing the driver from the vehicle was still at hand. Through the anxiety of the moment, Williams found himself with the presence of mind to take the appropriate tact.

“It was kind of hard getting the door open because I was kind of panicking at the same time and wasn’t thinking straight. As I thought about it, I grabbed the door with both hands and I used my feet to pry the car and I pulled the door open,” Williams said. “During that time, I was pulling trying to get her out and I realized she had her seatbelt on. So I had to go back underwater to take her seatbelt off. At that time, that’s when the other guy jumped in to help. We got her to the bank and the rescue took over from there.”

Octavia is still recovering from her injuries, which include two broken ribs, a broken sternum, a right ankle injury, deep lacerations on both sides of pelvic area, and a deep laceration on her right elbow.

“When you look at social media today and where we are in society, so many people want to pull their phone out and record stuff, but not want to help. I think what Mr. Williams has done was admirable. He was heroic,” Demopolis Police Department Chief Tommie Reese said. “He took his time. He stopped his truck, went down a hill to an unknown area, and he risked his own life to save another life.”

Williams, who resides in Moundville, attended Thursday’s meeting of the Demopolis City Council as an invited guest along with his wife, Kala, and two of his three children: Kennedy (3 years old) and Kendall (four months old).

Williams received the Medal of Valor from the Demopolis Police Department as well as the Key to the City from Mayor John Laney in recognition of his unhesitant heroic actions. Robert Wagstaff presented the family with an undisclosed monetary gift as a token of their appreciation.

Barry’s wife, Kala, laughed Thursday while taking the adulation her husband received for his willingness to help.

“He called me. I guess he was still freaked out,” she said, recalling the afternoon of Aug. 1. “He acted like it didn’t happen for a while. I guess it took a while for him to process what had happened. The biggest thing he said was, ‘I didn’t get my load. I missed my load.’”

“I just went back like it was a normal day. It was all in a day’s work. Being out there on the highway, I see a lot of stuff and it’s scary. I just take it day by day,” Barry added.