The assault at Rock the South in Cullman last weekend could have ended much worse had it not been for the courageous actions of one man.
When Chase Brown of Muscle Shoals went to the country music festival, he didn’t know he would possibly be saving Reid Watts’ life.
Brown spoke to Yellowhammer News and described the beating.
“Reid bumped into this middle-age gentleman and the gentleman was getting agitated,” Brown said. “You could tell by his body language that he was getting agitated but Reid was calm.
“Then they shook hands so I thought they were okay.”
Brown said a few minutes later, though, Watts was attacked “out of nowhere.”
“Reid then walked to the back of the crowd where me and my friends walked to and, out of nowhere, somebody out of the crowd in a white shirt came and knocked him in the back of the head,” he said. “He hit the ground and at the point when he hit the ground, the person in the white shirt got on top of him and just started hitting him and then people out of the crowd came out and jumped on him.
“They kicked him and stomped on him.”
Brown, a GI pediatrician nurse, said he made his way through the crowd to get to Watts and rendered first aid.
“I just started pulling people of of him,” Brown said. “I finally got with him. His head was lacerated and I didn’t know if it was deep but it was leaking pretty bad so I just held it until EMS got there.”
Watts, 18, was hospitalized with a concussion, a fractured nose, and other injuries.
As for the the drink that Watts supposedly spilled on someone leading to the altercation, Brown said Watts had nothing in his hands.
“When I saw him he didn’t even have a drink in his hand,” he said.
When Brown was asked why he stepped in, he said if it were somebody he knew he would want others to do the same.
“I was just looking at if it was somebody I know, it was my little brother, et cetera, I would want somebody to do something,” he said. “I wouldn’t just want them to stand around and watch because everyone was just standing around and watching really.”
Austen Shipley is a staff writer for Yellowhammer News.
