Ronan graduate gets second chance at life
Hey savvy news reader! Thanks for choosing local.
You are now reading
1 of 3 free articles.
The last thing 17 year-old Ronan graduate Jason Taylor remembers of May 29 was building a fire with his buddies at the kegger party after graduation. Next thing he knows, he’s strapped to a bed with tubes down his nostrils and throat after awaking from a 17-hour coma.
“I never expected something like this to happen,” mother Victoria Tejero said.
Tejero said she was confused and terrified when two Lake County officers knocked on her door at 3 a.m. to deliver some unfortunate news. Taylor had been found after police raided the party, scattering students in all directions. As the officers made their way through all the tents they found Taylor lying unconscious and not breathing, in his own vomit.
The officers then made a decision that saved Taylor’s life. Instead of waiting for an ambulance to arrive, Tribal officers T.J. Haynes and Steve Raymond decided to transport him to the hospital themselves. One officer tried to revive Taylor through CPR in the backseat while the other officer rushed them to St. Luke Community Hospital.
“Their decision not to wait for the ambulance saved my son’s life,” Tejero said.
Upon arrival at St. Luke, Taylor was lifeflighted to St. Patrick’s Hospital in Missoula, where he was admitted to the trauma unit. Taylor laid strapped to a bed, his lungs completely full of vomit. Now on life support, he remained in a coma for the next 17 hours, with doctors telling Tejero what worst case scenarios would be if his lungs had permanent damage.
“They kept talking about what could happen,” Tejero said. “One possibility was for him to loose part of his lungs.”
“The only thing keeping him here was life support,” she said. “It was a very scary time, nobody knew what was going to happen to him.”
After awaking from the coma, Taylor spent the next six hours in intensive care with tubes down his nostrils and mouth to extract the vomit from his lungs. Tejero says her son’s saving grace was the fact that he was in good physical shape from participating in sports.
After spending three days in Missoula, Taylor was released from the hospital with severe pneumonia, but is expected to make a full recovery.
“He’s such a good kid, he just went off the handle that night,” Tejero said. “He hadn’t eaten much that day and drank hard alcohol.”
Taylor’s sister, Zjani Salazar, went to the party last year after graduating, and had no problem. Salazar watched out for her brother this year, as she tagged along.
“She knew he was drunk, but she didn’t know he was that drunk,” Tejero said. “She helped him vomit and thought he was finished, and then put him in his tent and left around 12:30 a.m.”
Taylor wasn’t discovered until 2 a.m., so it’s unknown how long he laid unconscious.
“By the time the officers arrived, the party was pretty much over,” CSKT Tribal Law and Order Chief Craige Couture said. “They could have just left, but they checked every tent and saved his life. I’m very proud of my officers.”
Couture said tribal law maps out popular party spots to check on during graduation time every year.
“Sometimes we are the only ones out doing this,” Couture said. “We need more help.”
He added that since Taylor is a non-tribal member, he will go through the Lake County justice system for any potential citations.
“I’m really hoping this is a lesson that will last him a lifetime,” Tejero said.
Even though this was a scary and unfortunate turn of events for the graduate, Taylor has learned from the experience and wants to share his story with others.
“It was a very traumatizing thing to happen to me,” he said. “It was really a nightmare. Life is (so) much more important than going out and partying and getting drunk.”
Prior to blacking out at the party, Taylor admits he’d consumed a combination of 10 different hard alcohols on an empty stomach.
“I’m lucky to be alive,” he said. “I’ll never do that again.”
