He sent an angel to save my life: 86-year-old Ruby Jeter recalls the day she lived to tell her story

ROGERSVILLE — It was 48 years ago this Saturday, not unlike any other September night, when 38-year-old Kingsport mother of five Ruby Jeter prepared to leave work at the Holiday Inn on Lynn Garden Drive, unaware of how her life was about to change.
Then it happened.
“I could hear them talking, saying ‘Take her to the morgue,’ but I couldn’t say anything.  The blood was just gushing and my mind was coming and going.  That’s what I remember most.”
Today, at age 86 and a Rogersville resident for the past 21 years, Jeter vividly recalls the tale she says she is blessed to have lived to tell.
“I had just gotten off work.  Me and the lady who rode to work with me were trying to start my car.  And that’s when it happened.”
Jeter raised the car hood to adjust a lever on a faulty solenoid switch.
“The woman friend of mine was in the car, ready to feed the gas,  but when the motor started the car went into gear.  It jumped the curb and pinned me against the wall.”
The impact resulted in two broken arms, a severe head laceration and a ruptured axillary artery that supplied blood to Ruby’s arm.
In an instant, she was bleeding to death.
“No one could tell where the bleeding was coming from, but blood was everywhere,” she said.  “I thought I was already dead and so did everyone else.  No one knew what to do.”
When the vehicle struck the hotel wall, with Jeter sandwiched between the two, it hit with such force that sheet rock was knocked off the inner walls.
“My whole body went up under the car,” she remembered.
Ruby, as well as hotel staff and emergency crews that began to arrive at the scene, lost hope of anyone recovering her alive, that is until a stranger who was following a hunch became the man who saved her life.
In a 1965 interview, the late Walter Sluss of Lynn Garden said he heard sirens on his way home from work that night, around 11 p.m.  One ambulance, then another, passed as he pulled onto the road.  Sluss said he was compelled to follow.
When he arrived at the scene, he observed Jeter’s near-lifeless body in a pool of blood and jumped in to help almost immediately.
Ruby said Walter located the punctured artery and maintained pressure on it by pinching the area with his fingers, a trick he learned as a hospital employee.
“If it hadn’t been for that, I wouldn’t be here,” she said.  “It reminds me of the Bible story about the Good Samaritan.  That was him.”
Ruby was transported to a nearby hospital and into the operating room, her Good Samaritan by her side, his fingers continually clamping the artery until surgery stopped the bleeding.
By the time the procedure was complete, Ruby had lost six pints of blood.  The American Red Cross notes that the average adult body only carries 10 pints.
“She was unconscious and without any pulse when brought in,” her attending physician was reported having said.  The doctor also stated that without Sluss using the pressure technique he had learned, Jeter would have died.
As she sat looking over news photos that were taken on the night of her life-changing incident, Ruby said she and Walter maintained correspondence through the years with “thank you” cards and telephone calls to help her repay a debt of gratitude to the man who saved her life.
Ruby said her road to recovery was long, but her faith never wavered.
“I couldn’t even feed myself for a long time,” she noted.  “It is a sad, sad story, but God had something else for me to do and I thank the Lord every morning when I get out of bed and go into the kitchen.
“I want other people to know what Mr. Sluss did for me, so if they ever see someone in a situation like mine, they’ll know what to do for them.  It’s not a miracle that I’m here, it’s the Mercy of God, and He sent an angel to save my life.”