S.C. Students Put Class Skills Into Action After Crash
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June 06--ROCK HILL -- When a tractor-trailer crashed into an SUV carrying two teenage girls in front of Northwestern High School last month, the first emergency responders didn't arrive in ambulances or firetrucks.
They were three high school students who saw the accident then rushed over to help.
Jesse Black, a 17-year-old Rock Hill High rising senior who heard the collision, flung his car door open and ran from the school parking lot to the street, leaving his wallet in the front seat.
Black arrived to find smoke billowing from the Ford Explorer, which was smashed in from the front passenger-side headlight. He looked under the vehicle for leaking gas or other potential hazards before deciding it was safe to approach.
Inside, he saw the driver was in pain and the passenger was unconscious and bleeding. Her legs were caught under the airbag and twisted metal.
He brushed glass off the passenger, stabilized her arm and pressed on it to slow the blood.
She was in and out of consciousness. Black said he tried to comfort her by saying help was on the way.
Brittany McDaniel, a South Pointe High senior and Kayla Dellinger, a Northwestern senior, both of whom graduated on Saturday, were a block away at a gas station returning from lunch when they saw the 18-wheel truck hit the SUV as it turned left toward the school district's Applied Technology Center.
Both girls ran for the wreck.
Dellinger called 911 on her cellphone, while McDaniel went to help Black.
When McDaniel looked in the vehicle, she gasped.
The girls in the SUV were her friends and classmates at South Pointe.
Black and McDaniel continued to comfort the girls.
"I was just trying to be there for them, really," McDaniel said.
Janie Collins, a registered nurse who teaches medical science at the technology center, rushed from her classroom to the accident with an emergency bag.
The SUV was "unrecognizable," she said. "My first thought was 'Oh gosh, they're not going to be OK.'"
McDaniel and Dellinger prepared medical supplies, which Collins used to treat the driver's injuries.
When an ambulance arrived, Black told the EMS workers everything he knew about the accident and the victims' condition.
Both girls in the SUV have since recovered.
The driver, Rachel Keith, who graduated Saturday, was driven by ambulance to Piedmont Medical Center where she was treated and released. She was ticketed with failure to yield. The passenger, Ashley Eason, who also graduated Saturday, was flown by helicopter to Carolinas Medical Center in Charlotte, where she spent more than three weeks recovering from two broken femurs and fractures in her right arm.
The truck driver wasn't hurt.
EMS spokesman Robert White praised the students' reaction.
Before approaching an accident, it's critical to assess whether it's safe, White said. Call 911 immediately and comfort the injured, if possible, he said.
"It's great they didn't step across their bounds of what they were trained in," White said.
Black, McDaniel and Dellinger had each taken a medical science course at the Applied Technology Center and said they relied on what they learned.
"I'm so proud of them," Collins said. "When I got there, they were already doing something."
Collins said she referenced the incident in several classes about how to react in emergency situations.
McDaniel said she hasn't stopped thinking about it.
"It made me think about my father," she said. "He always says 'Be careful. I love you.' I always say I will, but you never know."
Shawn Cetrone 803-329-4072
