WEST PARIS — The mother of the 15-year-old boy who jumped off Snow Falls into the water below and had to be rescued Wednesday evening said her son is up and walking and in good spirits.
Sonya Martin of Oxford confirmed that her son, Kaleb Martin, was the teen who was rescued by members of West Paris, South Paris and Woodstock fire departments, Oxford Fire/Rescue, PACE Ambulance and Tri-Town Rescue at the rest area on Route 26 in West Paris.
She said Kaleb and two friends were ledge-jumping all day Wednesday in the area, including at Frenchman’s Hole in Bethel. On their way home, they asked if they could ledge-jump at Snow Falls. Martin said she drove the boys, who all jumped at Snow Falls, but she did not jump.
“Then Kaleb, my fearless daredevil, said he wanted to go higher,” she said, adding that his friends told him not to jump. “Even before I could say anything, I looked up and he was already in the air — he jumped — my heart stopped, seeing him in the air.”
Kaleb knew there was a rock in the water below, but he thought he could avoid it, according to his mother.
“I heard him hit the water,” she said. “When he comes up I heard him make a noise … but then he started screaming, ‘Guys, I need you down here now! I can’t breathe. I can’t move,’” Martin recalled. “He said he felt paralyzed for a minute or two and his heart hurt to breathe. I could see his legs moving, but he was still in the water and he couldn’t come out of the water.”
She said her son landed on his tailbone and left butt cheek.
Martin called rescue. But before any first responders on duty arrived, along came a first responder from West Paris in his kayak who had not heard the call to help with the situation, she said.
She also commended a good Samaritan who stopped to talk to the boys and Martin during the rescue.
“She helped me through,” Martin said. “She was a godsend or something.”
Then rescue arrived.
“They got him on the backboard and on the kayak and his buddies along each end of the kayak brought him across,” she said. “His buddies never left him.”
He was taken to Stephens Memorial Hospital in Norway and then to the Barbara Bush Children’s Hospital in Portland. A CT scan in Norway revealed he had a fracture in his T12 thoracic vertebra, but there is nothing to be done about it except to let it heal, Martin said.
“It has been a long night,” she said.
Early Thursday afternoon Kaleb and his mother were waiting for X-rays to be done on his neck at the Portland hospital. She did not think the neck issue was from Wednesday’s jump, but from an injury he suffered earlier this summer at a trampoline park.
Even so, things are good with her son, even if “his butt is going to hurt for a while.”
“He’s cracking jokes,” Martin said. “He is in good spirits. He just wants that damn neck brace off.”
So will she allow her son to continue to jump off ledges?
“Evidently, I am not going to stop him,” she said, laughing. “(I told him), ‘I am not taking you jumping.’”
