Eureka resident Jason A. Ashby, 45, has been awarded Missouri’s highest honor for first responders.
The detective with the Missouri State Highway Patrol received the Medal of Valor from Gov. Mike Parson on Sept. 1.
Ashby, who graduated from Eureka High School in 1995, earned the honor for his life-saving actions during a midnight boat accident in July 2020 at the Lake of the Ozarks.
Ashby and four other people were knocked into the water when a boat rammed their boat in an apparent drunken boating incident.
Ashby was able to save Hayden Steinkuehler, 14, of Fenton by performing CPR and getting her to shore.
“I believe I was just doing what any decent human being would do, and I truly believe that,” said Ashby, who served in the U.S. Marine Corps for five years before joining the Highway Patrol.
Hayden’s father, Brad Steinkuehler, and Scott Comia, of O’Fallon, who was driving the boat that was hit, also survived the accident.
Hayden’s mother, Marie Stein-kuehler, died. She was 43.
John D. Bennett of New Haven, who drove the boat that rammed the vessel, has been charged with five felonies related to boating while intoxicated, court records show.
Hayden said she considers Ashby to be her “second dad” and is grateful for what he did for her that day.
“I have real-life heroes, like not people from a movie or people from a book,” she said.
The Medal of Valor is Missouri’s highest award recognizing public safety officers who exhibit exceptional courage, extraordinary decisiveness and presence of mind, and unusual swiftness of action, regardless of his or her personal safety, in the attempt to save or protect human life, according to a statement from Parson’s office.
Brad Stein-
kuehler said Ashby is deserving of the honor.
“There’s tons of people in this world who do something like that, but they don’t get recognition all the time,” the 44-year-old Fenton resident said. “It was good for the recognition to come out.”
The accident
The late-night boat ride started on July 24, 2020, when childhood friends – Ashby, Comia, Brad and Marie – got together on a dock at the Lake of the Ozarks. Ashby and Comia attended Eureka High together, and Brad, who attended Rockwood Summit High School in Fenton, played for Eureka High’s ice hockey team.
“We all grew up on the same street,” Ashby said. “We have known each other our whole lives.”
Hayden was with her parents for the gathering, and she said it was her and her mother’s idea for the group to go out in Comia’s 33-foot formula boat.
“(Comia) had really good lights on his boat,” she said.
Ashby said their boat was struck just after midnight on July 25 at about the 18-mile marker of the main channel. He said the boat Bennett was driving had several people on it, but no one on that boat was injured.
“Probably less than a second before it happened, Brad yelled, ‘Boat!’” he said. “By the time we turned around, it hit us. There was no time to react.”
Ashby said he believes he was unconscious for just more than a minute after the impact. He said Comia also was knocked out for a short period of time, and the two regained consciousness at about the same time.
He said the Steinkuehlers were unconscious in the water.
“We were stunned and confused and weren’t really sure what happened,” he said. “I just kind of reacted. In Marine Corps and police training, we are always taught to react. I think that’s what I did.”
Ashby said Comia was able to get Brad Steinkuehler back on the boat, and he swam to Hayden. He said the teenager wasn’t breathing and he could not detect a pulse.
He was able to get her onto the boat and began life-saving procedures.
Ashby also said he could tell Marie Steinkuehler was going to die as a result of the accident.
“I have enough experience to know that it wasn’t good,” he said.
During the ordeal, Ashby said he saw someone on shore flashing a light, signaling that the person witnessed the accident. He yelled out to the person to call 911 and to tell the dispatcher an off-duty Highway Patrol trooper was already at the scene.
Ashby was performing CPR on Hayden when Comia was able to restart the boat and pilot everyone to shore.
When they got to the shore, Ashby said he got Hayden out of the boat, and he continued to perform CPR on the teen.
“Finally, she took a big gasping breath,” Ashby said. “I remember I was screaming at her to wake up.”
Ashby and another person on the shore carried Hayden about halfway up some stairs to reach paramedics when they arrived in an ambulance. The teenager was airlifted to an area hospital, where she and her father were put into medically-induced comas because of the major brain injuries they sustained in the accident.
“I had four fractured vertebrae,” Brad Steinkuehler said.
Hayden said she suffered a fractured skull and broken ribs.
“I assume it was from the CPR that Jason gave me because they said it was like the ribs by my heart,” she said.
Hayden said she woke up several days after the accident, and her father remained comatose for a month.
“I am very fortunate to be here with her,” Brad Steinkuehler said.
Ashby said he received stitches at the hospital following the accident, and he underwent shoulder surgery in April to repair damage he sustained in the ordeal.
He said he would not hesitate to react the same way he did that morning in July if he were involved in a similar incident.
“I think a vast majority of people would have reacted like I did and tried to save Hayden’s life,” Ashby said.
Fallout
Bennett has been charged with boating while intoxicated resulting in the death of another, a class C felony; two counts of boating while intoxicated resulting in serious physical injury, class D felonies; and two counts of boating while intoxicated resulting in physical injury, class E felonies, court documents show.
He is scheduled to have a jury trial starting Jan. 10, 2022, in Camden County, court records said.
If convicted, Bennett can be sentenced to three to 10 years in prison for the class C felony, up to seven years for each of the class D felonies and up to four years for each of the class E felonies.