Scout saves grandma who fell into dishwasher

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By ZACH PLUHACEK / Lincoln Journal Star

Dressed up in his Cub Scout uniform, Nile Debebe looks a bit like a superhero.

He’s got the credentials, too.

The 7-year-old was the only other person home when his 83-year-old grandmother fell into the dishwasher, gashed her leg to the bone and blacked out.

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Nile Debebe, 7, ran to his neighbor for help after his grandmother Mattie Mae Sim (R) fell on the dishwasher and cut her leg while the two were alone together. (Gwyneth Roberts)

Nile Debebe, 7, ran to his neighbor for help after his grandmother Mattie Mae Sim (R) fell on the dishwasher and cut her leg while the two were alone together. (Gwyneth Roberts)

“I wasn’t scared,” Nile says, playing it cool Sunday while his parents and grandmother, Mattie Mae Sim, tell the story of how Nile saved her the previous Sunday.

Okay, maybe her grandson was a little freaked out. But only at first.

He jumped around on the couch, trying to figure out what to do. Then, he says, he remembered he’s a Cub Scout.

He ran to a neighbor’s house for help. He saved his grandma.

Sim — who was staying with Nile while his parents were on vacation — takes a blood thinner.

“She was really bleeding vigorously,” said Nile’s dad, Joseph Debebe, and her upper blood pressure measured nearly twice the normal level.

The neighbor, Barb Ramm, helped put a bandage on Sim’s cut, then drove her to BryanLGH Medical Center East.

Doctors there gave Sim 20 stitches to close her wound.

“I don’t know what would’ve happened,” Sim said a week later.

Her grandson beamed. He’s looking forward to seeing his fellow Cub Scouts Wednesday.

“I think one of his rules they learn ... (is) to respond immediately,” Nile’s dad said.

Ramm, who has lived in the neighborhood for about five years, has only seen Nile in passing; he would stand on a nearby driveway and wave.

He was shy. Clark Kent-ish.

“It was just amazing how he came right up to my door and asked me to do this,” Ramm said.

Sunday, while his family couldn’t stop talking about how proud they were of their boy, Nile just beamed, inching his way back toward his hand-held video game.

Until next time. Then it’s SuperNile to the rescue.

Reach Zach Pluhacek at 473-7306 or zpluhacek@journalstar.com.