Police officer honored for saving retired two-star general

Off-duty Redstone police Lt. Derek Jones and his girlfriend, Molly Shaver, were running the Oak Barrel Half Marathon on April 4 in Lynchburg, Tennessee, with about 1,650 people. About a mile into the run, the unthinkable happened.

A fellow runner collapsed from a heart attack with cardiac arrest.

Jones immediately started CPR on the stricken man, retired Maj. Gen. Lynn Collyar, who was running the 13.1-mile race with his wife, Sarah.

With some support from two Huntsville Hospital nurses, Jones worked on the fallen veteran for about eight minutes until a race ambulance arrived.

After they put Collyar in the ambulance and used the defibrillator on him, his heart started and a couple of minutes later he began breathing.

On April 20, Lt. Gen. Gavin Lawrence, the Redstone senior commander, presented a Civilian Service Commendation Medal to Jones whose efforts contributed to the immediate care and survival of Collyar. Among the ceremony’s attendees were Collyar and his wife.

“Right person, right place, right time to render lifesaving,” Lawrence said. “This highlights for all of us the importance of training to give lifesaving CPR.”

Collyar, 69, of Owens Cross Roads, thanked Jones for saving his life. The Huntsville native served as commander of the Aviation and Missile Command from 2012-14.

“It gives you great faith in humanity that people stopped (to render aid),” Collyar said. “People I’d never seen before stopped and tried to do good. I thank Derek for everything that he did.”

Jones, 36, of Huntsville, joined the Redstone Police Department in March 2025. He has worked in civilian law enforcement since 2012. Before arriving here, Jones was at the U.S. Army Garrison in Rheinland-Pfalz, Germany, and prior to that he was at Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands. The Manchester, Tennessee, native received his initial CPR training at the police academy at Cleveland State Community College in Tennessee.

“I wasn’t looking for any recognition,” Jones said after the award ceremony. “The award in my eyes is General Lynn Collyar being alive and here and getting to meet him because in this line of work if you do something like this you never know. Most times you never know or you never get to meet the person you helped save.”

Jones and Shaver both completed the race that fateful day. He finished in 2:55 while she finished in three hours. “I was gonna let him win,” Shaver said.

Ironically, five days before the race, Collyar brought coffee and cookies to the officers at Redstone Police Department. “That’s like they said, coming full circle,” Jones said.