Yelena Ovcharenko
Staff Writer
Melissa Stearns, a senior athletic training major, put her rescue skills to work last month, helping a couple out of their semi truck, following an accident on the 57 Freeway.
The flipped cab on the opposite side of the road caught her eye as Stearns headed southbound. So she pulled her car over to offer a helping hand. There were several people at the scene nervously dialing 9-1-1 on their cell phones. She rushed to the side of a panicking woman still in the truck. She asked the woman about her children, to keep the woman alert and conscious while waiting for the paramedics. Upon their arrival the victim passed out. Stearns helped the paramedics strap her to the spine board.
Stearns recalls that the paramedics seemed nervous.
“I don’t think they had much training,” Stearns said.
One paramedic attempted to pull the woman from the truck by her ankle.
Stearns volunteered to go inside the truck to assist in getting the woman out safely.
Later the woman was lying on the spine board without a blanket while it was raining outside. Stearns covered the lady with the blanket and wiped off the remaining diesel fuel on her with another.
Amazingly this is not the first time Stearns heroically assisted in a car accident. Once while driving down Baseline in Claremont, a truck collided with a van causing the truck to flip on its side. After witnessing the accident Stearns rushed to the assistance of the victims. She helped a woman out of the van and helped to remove glass off the victim.
In another instance Stearns helped direct traffic after a fender bender occurred on the second lane of the freeway.
“I always pull over when there’s no paramedics,” Stearns said.
Stearns received first responder training and CPR training approximately three years ago through the athletic training education program at the University.
Stearns is able to control bleeding, fasten someone to a spine board, conduct CPR and assist an injured person or athlete and make him feel comfortable before the arrival of the paramedics.
Stearns remains as the unsung hero and is unable to find out about the victim after the accident because the information is never given to her.
Even though Stearns had several encounters on the road, she has never assisted any seriously injured students at ULV.
Stearns has recently applied to Western University, a graduate medical school in Pomona, in hopes to get a degree in either orthodontics or pediatrics in hopes of improving the lives of others.
Yelena Ovcharenko can be reached at yovcharenko@ulv.edu.
