VIDEO: A 92-year-old Macon man is repaying a decades-old debt to the fire department that helped save his life by donating four acres of land for a new station.
George Clay plans to give the Macon-Bibb Fire Department property on Estes Road after firefighters were the first to respond when a tractor ran over him on April 21, 1980.
Clay was working on apartments when he left a tractor running while getting off. The machine knocked him down, and he couldn’t escape as the tire rolled up the left side of his body.
“The fire department were the first ones that got there,” Clay said. “They had the manpower to do what is necessary of getting the weight off of me.”
The accident broke Clay’s ribs, punctured his left lung, broke his left collarbone and cheekbones and nearly fractured his limbs. It also left him temporarily blind in his left eye.
“It broke my ribs, it punctured my left lung, it came up and broke my left collarbone, my cheekbones, almost fractured my limbs,” Clay recalled of being trapped under the tractor.
