A Fort Campbell soldier's early-morning pit stop turned into a life-saving situation.
Pfc. Jade Johnson stopped for gas outside of Nashville, about an hour south of Fort Campbell, around 4 a.m. on Saturday when he heard a loud crash and bang.
Johnson, an infantryman with Company B, 2nd Battalion, 502nd Infantry Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault), said he thought a gas line had exploded, but then he saw a car had crashed into a pole and caught on fire.
"I kind of stopped for a second and thought, 'Did this really happen?' " he said.
Johnson called 911 and put his Army training to use.
He and a man from another car that had stopped helped get two high-school males out of the crashed car.
The driver could barely walk, Johnson said, so he helped him to a gravel pit before dragging the unconscious passenger over to the pit as well.
That's when Johnson saw there was a steady drip coming from the car that was catching fire.
"I don't know if cars explode in real life, but I didn't want to risk it," he said.
Johnson helped the driver and passenger to the other side of the building and began checking them for injuries. The passenger's legs were bloody, so he took off the passenger's pants and saw the deep cut above his knee.
"There was blood pulsing out of it," he said. "In my training, if it's pulsating, that means it's arterial."
The 23-year-old knew that he needed to make a tourniquet, but he was wearing a thermal shirt that began to fray, so he used the passenger’s shirt instead.
He tore the shirt and tied it around the passenger’s leg, using a piece of metal he found to crank it down, telling him to hold it there.
Johnson then checked on the driver, whose face was "beaten up pretty bad," so he told the driver to keep his hand on his eye to apply pressure to one of the cuts there.
At this point, the passenger regained consciousness and started screaming about his leg, he said.
"I told him what my job was and said, ‘Do you know what an infantryman is? Do you trust me?’ He said yeah, and I said, ‘Good then look at me, don’t look at your leg,’ " Johnson said.
Time was passing, and Johnson didn’t know where the ambulance was. He called 911 again, and a police officer eventually found him, followed by an ambulance and fire trucks.
From start to finish, Johnson said the incident took about an hour or hour and a half. He gave the police officers a quick report and statement.
Johnson said his Army training
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including Fort Campbell’s Eagle First Responders Course
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gave him the skills to respond in such a situation.
"If it wasn’t for that, I probably wouldn’t have known what to do," he said of the course that teaches soldiers such skills as treating bleeding and applying tourniquets.
Johnson said he "didn’t even have to think about it"
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he just tried to do what he could to help.
"Anyone would have done the same thing," he said.
It was the second time in a month that a Fort Campbell soldier came to the aid of traffic accident victims.
Sergeant rescues driver
On Jan. 28, Sgt. Chase Rapp with Fort Campbell's 716th Military Police Battalion, 101st Airborne Division Sustainment Brigade, 101st Airborne Division, used his military training to help with a car crash in Indiana.
According to the Fort Campbell Courier, Rapp and his girlfriend saw that a truck had crashed into a pole, leaving the driver unconscious.
The truck doors were locked, but Rapp was able to smash the rear windows and climb inside. He opened the doors and grabbed his medical bag from his car. He bandaged the man's wounds and applied pressure as the fire department arrived.
Rapp learned the man had lived, according to the newspaper.
Rapp had earned his certified nursing assistant certificate prior to joining the military. He has also taken the Army's 40-hour Combat Lifesaver Course.
Charlsy Panzino covers the Guard and Reserve, training, technology, operations and features for Army Times and Air Force Times. Email her at cpanzino@militarytimes.com.
Charlsy is a Reporter and Engagement Manager for Military Times. Email her at cpanzino@militarytimes.com.
