BOONE COUNTY HEROES: Road workers reunite injured man with important partner

A good deed brings three men together on a lonely country road

COLUMBIA, Mo 9/5/13 (Beat Byte) -- A man in a wheelchair who may have been the victim of a hit-and-run accident on a lonely country road is giving thanks for the kindness of two Boone County employees.

On a June evening around midnight, Jeff Guyer, who lives on Highway HH near Hallsville, wheeled down his drive toward the highway to call his dog in for the night.

His dog returned home, but Guyer -- an amputee -- had a long and terrifying delay.  As he turned his wheelchair back toward the house, he saw rapidly approaching headlights -- and then nothing.

All he remembers is waking up at the Harry Truman Memorial Veterans’ Hospital.  Guyer had been in the dark for two days, hit by a car and left on the side of the road.   

The accident also left him without a key life partner:  his wheelchair. 

Weeks later, on August 19, Boone County public works employees Gordon McCune and Adam Reddick visited Guyer at home. 

They were on their regular routes -- McCune operates a road grader in the neighborhood, Reddick drives a dump truck -- and had found a wheelchair buried in the brush down the road from Guyer's house. 

The chair was damaged and McCune offered to repair it at no cost.   A few days later, Jeff Guyer was reunited with his partner in mobility, fixed and ready to go. 

"There are people out there who do things out of genuine caring, and I believe that’s what these men did,” Guyer said.  

McCune and Riddick said little about their good deed back at work.  But Guyer wanted them recognized, "like the firefighters and police officers who perform lifesaving duties every day," and he called their department.   Guyer had a brush with injury and death in 2008, when emergency personnel rescued him from a fire at his home. 

Boone County Commissioners Dan Atwill, Karen Miller, and Janet Thompson will recognize McCune and Riddick today, September 5, 2013 at 1:30PM in the Commission Chambers, downtown Columbia.