The DeKalb County school board’s budget hearing Monday was interrupted by the collapse of a man who was standing in line to speak.
Gregory Davis, a bus mechanic, had been a forceful presence at such hearings, chiding the board about the effect of past cuts that resulted in layoffs and a backlog of downed buses. At 12:30 p.m. he was next in line to speak when, standing with his hands in his pockets, he suddenly fell to the ground.
The crowd gasped. Kirk Lunde, a parent who was speaking at the podium, turned and rushed to Davis’ aide, dashing from view of the rolling television cameras. Lunde stayed with him for the several minutes it took for an ambulance to arrive.
“I heard his head hit the ground, so I thought he might have broken his neck,” said Lunde, who braced Davis’ head in his forearms to keep his neck straight. Then Lunde had a greater concern, and he and several other men who had rushed to help rolled Davis onto his side, in hopes of clearing his airway. “He wasn’t breathing,” said Lunde, a former respiratory therapist.
Davis’ breaths were sporadic and labored, and he was motionless as paramedics wheeled him away. After a break, and a moment of silence, the meeting continued. Then, a couple of hours after the incident, interim Superintendent Michael Thurmond broke the news: Davis had died. “Our hearts go out to him and his family,” Thurmond said. He said Davis had helped coordinate a meeting with mechanics as Thurmond crafted the budget.
“He was an outstanding gentleman,” Thurmond said, a “dedicated and beloved employee of the district.”
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