Sarah Whitlock has three words to describe her reaction to seeing a hand in a ditch while driving late one August night:
"I was petrified."
The 21-year-old nursing student who attends Presentation College in Aberdeen, S.D., was driving along South Fork Road in Cody, WY—her hometown—around 11:30 p.m. on August 12. Despite the darkness, she saw a hand sticking out of a roadside ditch.
"It scared me half to death," says Whitlock. "It was something you’d see in a scary movie."
After pulling over and running to the ditch, Whitlock found a man lying in the ravine, clearly wounded and barely conscious. She called her parents (who lived nearby on South Fork) to bring a flashlight and blanket, then called 9-1-1.
"I could tell he was going into shock," she says. "In that instant, my heart was just pounding."
As a BSN student, Whitlock’s nursing school training came into play as she assessed the man’s condition. "All my studying from nursing school kicked in. I thought, ‘I’ve got to keep him warm and keep him conscious.’ You could tell he was trying to keep the adrenaline going, but once I was there, he relaxed, since he realized he was getting help. So he kept going in and out of consciousness, and I tried to keep him alert."
The injured man, Paul House of Cody, was taken by ambulance to West Park Hospital in Cody and then air-lifted by helicopter to St. Vincent Healthcare in Billings, MT. He was reportedly driving his motorcycle on South Fork around 6:30 that evening when he swerved to miss a rabbit and went over the edge of the road and fell 120 feet into the ditch. Barbed wire from a fence became wrapped around his legs.
Slithering up to the top of the ditch despite his bad injuries, House kept his bike lights on to attract help. But it wasn’t until five hours after his accident that Whitlock found him.
House sustained more than 20 cracks in his ribs, fractures in his back, and a collapsed lung, according to reports. He has also required two surgeries on his leg that was wrapped in barb wire, and was given 10 units of blood.
A couple days following the accident, House’s wife, Jackie House, called Whitlock to express her immense gratitude. Although Jackie and others have declared Whitlock’s actions heroic, Whitlock is quick to point out she doesn’t view herself as a star.
"Honestly, I don’t view myself as a hero," she says. "I’m just someone who did the right thing when I was there."
Whitlock says she absolutely attributes her life-saving actions to her nursing education.
"My nursing background helped a lot," she says. "It’s like the simplest things you learn, they came back to me. You never know when you’re going to use them."
The most important thing, says Whitlock, is that House made it through the ordeal and is on his way to recovery. "I’m just thankful he’s okay," she says. "I’m thankful that I saw him and that he’s doing better."
Fittingly, Whitlock says she’s considering a possible career in the ER following graduation in May 2009.
"I like the adrenaline," she says with a laugh. "I’m an adrenaline junkie."
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