By Elizabeth Campbell
Fort Worth Star-Telegram
Copyright 2008 Fort Worth Star-Telegram
PARKER COUNTY, Texas — Paramedic Donnie Stone is lucky to be alive.
On Valentine’s Day last year, he was returning to the fire station near Azle in Parker County when he was struck in the head by a jack that was hurled into oncoming traffic on Farm Road 730.
Stone was sitting in the passenger seat of an ambulance when the jack went through the windshield. He suffered a skull fracture, assistant district attorney Jeff Swain said.
Stone missed a month of work because of the injury and still bears a three-inch scar.
On Tuesday, Bryan Lawson Cotton, 19, of Azle was sentenced to seven years in prison on an aggravated assault charge after reaching a plea agreement in Parker County’s 43rd District Court.
“We felt that while this young man nearly had a clean criminal record, his actions were so dangerous and nearly deadly that he deserved to go to prison,” Swain said.
It is unclear why Cotton threw the jack into oncoming traffic. “Earlier that day, he broke a window in his father’s car,” Swain said. “Something set him off.”
Stone said he was writing a report on his laptop computer after going on a medical call when he felt something hit his head.
“I was looking down, doing my report. The next thing I know is that I can’t see anything. I came to and saw blood covering my face.
Stone said he never lost consciousness completely.
A plastic surgeon sewed up the wound with “hundreds of stitches,” he said.
He suffered from terrible headaches for about two weeks, and was off work for a month out of concern that he could be injured because of his demanding job.
Stone was working the last shift of his part-time job with Lifecare EMS in Parker County when he was hit.
He now works at Dallas/Fort Worth Airport.