‘She had a heart of gold”

Published 6:00 am Sunday, June 28, 2026

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Sara Jo Reeder, who dies attempting to save a drowning child June 12 at Phil Moore Park. (Submitted)

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Sara Jo Reeder, who died June 12 trying to save a drowning child at Phil Moore Park. (Photo submitted by Ashley Flowers)

Sarah Reeder’s last act on earth — jumping into a creek at Phil Moore Park to save a child struggling to stay above water — fit with the type of person her family and friends knew her to be.

While the child survived after a passing kayaker was able to get him and Reeder back onto land, the 42-year-old Reeder died at The Medical Center on the night of June 12, after suffering severe oxygen deprivation in the hours after she jumped in to rescue a boy she had not met before.

“Once I got to the hospital and they told me what happened I thought ‘that was her’ … she didn’t think, she just jumped in,” Reeder’s mother, Becky Crick, told the Daily News. “I knew the impact she had on people from a child up, she had a special gift. If she’d see somebody in trouble she would try to help them, or take some time to figure out a way she could help them. She had a heart of gold.”

Those close to Reeder, who leaves behind three children, have worked to honor her memory, ensure her children are cared for and tried to advocate for more safety measures at local parks.

Ashley Flowers describes Reeder as her best friend going back to when they met in middle school while growing up in Bowling Green.

It was Reeder who taught her how to dance back then, Flowers said, and the pair spent little time apart from one another after that, through working together at Denny’s as younger adults, long car trips, being in both of Flowers’ weddings and sharing play time and later graduations with their kids.

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When country star Jelly Roll performed at Southern Kentucky Performing Arts Center in 2023, Flowers had an issue with buying digital tickets online, so she and Reeder simply camped overnight outside SKyPAC and bought their tickets in person the next day, Flowers said.

“She’s always the first person I called when it came down to if I wanted to do something,” Flowers said. “She was very supportive and always there, I could pick up the phone and message or text or whatever and she would be right there…she was kinda like my sister, I could always just call her if I needed something and same here if she needed something from me, I would be there for her. I would always get her opinions on things, she was always real with me.”

After Reeder’s death, Flowers organized a registry on online fundraiser SupportNow for donations to cover funeral expenses and support Reeder’s children.

As of the end of this week, more than $16,000 had been raised.

The fundraising effort is particularly important to Flowers, who has taken in one of the children that had been in Reeder’s care.

“I know I made the right choice because I know she’d do it for me if it was one of my kids,” Flowers said.

Melissa Donovan lived next door to Flowers growing up and was also a good friend of Reeder’s.

When Donovan’s parents were moving out of their apartment recently, Donovan said she reached out to Reeder, knowing she took on odd jobs occasionally to support her children, and asked if she would help with cleaning the apartment.

Reeder came to the apartment that same day, cleaned it thoroughly, and negotiated down from what Donovan described as an “ungodly amount of money” her mother was prepared to pay Reeder.

“I really want Sarah to be remembered for the loving and giving person that she was and I want the best for her kids,” Donovan said. “She did everything she could for them no matter what and going forward, I’d like the community to continue to remember Sarah and continue to show up for (her children) as they go into adulthood.”

Reeder was especially good with children — Donovan said her own kids called Reeder “Aunt Sarah.”

“I don’t know anybody that didn’t like her,” Donovan said. “When I’d get overwhelmed I would tell her the kids are gonna be the death of me, and she would say ‘they’re only little once, you’ve got to cherish this time.’ “

Donovan said she has reached out in the past several days to local parks and law enforcement officials in an effort to look into installing lifesaving ring mounts and throwable rings waterside throughout the county’s parks, and is considering other ways to raise awareness of safety in the park system’s waterways.

While Phil Moore Park has a life jacket loaner station through a grant from Kentucky Fish and Wildlife, and a colored flag system in use to indicate the safety conditions in the water, Donovan said more can be done to prevent tragic scenarios there.

“There’s a lot of things where you think if this had happened or if that had happened, if that kid was wearing a life jacket or if there had been something down there that Sarah could have thrown to him, she wouldn’t have had to go into the water,” Donovan said. “I’m determined to prevent this from happening to someone else … this would have been completely preventable if the right safety equipment was available.”