Last Nov. 6, Ty Waddell, a fifth grader at Doak Elementary School, and his mother, Karen Seaton Waddell, a teacher's aide at the same school, were injured in a collision while on the way to school.

On Friday morning, they met some of the emergency personnel from Greene County-Greeneville Emergency Medical Services (EMS) and Wings Air Rescue who treated and transported them after their wreck.

Ty, who is 10, his parents, and older sister, Logan, also were treated to brief flights in the Wings Air Rescue helicopter based at Laughlin Memorial Hospital. The flights had been arranged by EMS Paramedic Calvin Hawkins who had treated Ty last November during the ambulance trip to the JCMC from the accident scene.

At the controls of the helicopter on Friday morning was Wings Air Rescue pilot Kenny Watson who also had flown Karen Waddell to the JCMC from the accident scene at the intersection of Edens Road and the Tusculum Bypass (Tennessee Highway 107).

Pilot Watson said he recalled responding to the November accident and transporting Karen Waddell to the JCMC.

Karen Waddell said Friday that she had been flown by a Wings Air Rescue helicopter from the accident scene to the Johnson City Medical Center, while Ty was transported to the same hospital by a Greene County-Greeneville Emergency Medical Services ambulance.

Karen spent 29 days at the JCMC and Takoma Regional Hospital's rehabilitation unit recovering from serious injuries. Ty was released from the JCMC on the day of the accident.

On Friday morning, Karen Waddell said neither she nor Ty retain memories of the accident. "When I was in intensive care, I prayed that God would take the memories away," she said. "And He did."

She recalled on Friday that last Nov. 6 had been especially troubling for her husband, Phil Waddell, because his father, Phillip Waddell, underwent open-heart surgery at the JCMC the same day she and Ty were rushed there after their wreck.

"The Lord is good," Phil Waddell said on Friday morning concerning the reason for his wife and son's survival. "He really blessed us. He took care of us. You can see the hand-prints of God through every part of this, even them deciding to fly Karen to the hospital."

Phil Waddell said emergency personnel originally believed Ty Waddell had been more seriously injured than he was. "I think it was just the trauma of the accident," Phil Waddell said. "He was scared to death."

But EMS EMT Calvin Hawkins, who, along with EMS Paramedic Clay Dunaway, transported and treated Ty Waddell last November, recalled that Ty was very helpful in providing medical information to emergency personnel about his mother at the accident scene.

Karen Waddell, Hawkins and Dunaway said, was unable to communicate with emergency medical personnel after the accident.

"He was strong," Hawkins said of 10-year-old Ty Waddell.

On Friday morning Ty did not know he was destined to fly in a Wings Air Rescue helicopter, his parents said.

He had been accompanied to the Greene County-Greeneville Emergency Medical Services office on West Summer Street by his parents, maternal grandmother, sister, uncles and his "best friend" Levi Myers to be re-united with EMT Hawkins and Paramedic Dunaway.

At the EMS office, Ty received an EMS baseball cap and T-shirt and was given a tour of an EMS ambulance that later transported the group to the helicopter pad at Laughlin Memorial Hospital.

EMT Hawkins said Karen Waddell had told him earlier that Ty had been upset that emergency personnel had to cut away one of his favorite shirts after the accident last November.

Hawkins said EMS gave him a new T-shirt in an attempt to make up for having had to destroy the boy's shirt last year.

At the Laughlin Memorial Hospital helipad on Friday morning, Ty and his family and friends were greeted by Wings Air Rescue pilot Kenny Watson, Wings Flight Paramedic Lynn Rowlett and Wings Flight Nurse Mike Clark.

After a tour of the helicopter for the Waddell and Seaton families, Watson and Rowlett took Ty and his father, Phil, on the first of two short flights aboard the helicopter.

On his return, Ty said he "really liked" the flight. Asked if he would like to fly again, Ty said, "I don't know."

Phil Waddell said Ty had never before flown in any type of aircraft and that he, himself, had not flown in a helicopter before.

"I think the pilot said we were flying about 115 miles per hour," Phil Waddell said.

He noted that the helicopter had passed over the Glendale area where the Waddell family lives and also had passed over Tusculum before returning to the helipad at Laughlin Memorial Hospital.

After Ty and Phil Waddell returned from their flight, Karen and Logan Waddell, a Chuckey-Doak Middle School student, went on a second short flight.

Karen Waddell recalled on Friday that she and her son were injured last Nov. 6 when she attempted to cross the Tusculum Bypass and Edens Road and her car was struck broadside in the driver's door by another car.

The driver of the other vehicle, Paula Broyles, 32, of Chuckey, was treated for injuries and released from Laughlin Memorial Hospital, Tusculum Police Officer Dustin Jeffers said last November.