Two nurses first on scene of truck crash recount life-saving eff - KOTA Territory News

Two nurses first on scene of truck crash recount life-saving efforts

What started as a routine errand became anything but routine for two Rapid City nurses. They watched in horror as an accident unfolded before them.

That's when their training kicked in.

It happened Wednesday, after Amy Willson and Carol Robinson finished filling the company car up with gas.
 
"I took a wrong turn," said Amy Willson, just in time to see a truck veer off of Omaha Street twice; the second time, into a pedestrian.
 
"We pulled over right away," she said.
 
"We both knew that there were going to be some serious injuries," added Carol Robinson, Willson's passenger.
 
Police say the driver, 72-year-old Charles Doherty, has a medical condition which caused him to swerve into 46-year-old Joel Nikolas.

Willson and Robinson, both registered nurses working for Sanford Research, rushed to help.
 
"I would hope that anyone who sees an accident would stop and provide basic care," Robinson said.
 
The women were aided by two other bystanders who they said were, as luck would have it, another nurse and a former EMT.

Together, the team tended to both men.
 
"We all kind of had our own role," said Robinson. "We just knew, it was like an innate sense, we knew what we needed to do.
 
"Nothing really goes in your head, except for 'this is what I've got to do,'" Willson said.
 
Robinson called 911 as she got out of the car, and in the few minutes before emergency responders arrived, Willson pulled a CPR mask from a pouch on her key ring and started to resuscitate the driver, who wasn't breathing.
 
"I think it was just good timing for us to be able to be there and help those people," said Robinson.
 
The Red Cross reports brain damage can occur after just four to six minutes without oxygen.
 
"Had CPR not been done," Willson said, "he wouldn't have had a chance."
 
Both women call it a miracle.
 
"I think the Lord was looking out for him," said Willson, "both of them."

"I'm glad that we made that wrong turn," added Robinson.

Even more amazing, both women work with babies, not adults, at the research company.

Neither had actually used their yearly CPR training before.

No citations were issued in the accident, and both the driver and the pedestrian have been released after treatment at Rapid City Regional Hospital.