May 11--Thalia Rodriguez was on her way to a ridealong at a Hialeah fire station Sunday when she saw a severely injured man bleeding on the side of the road next to a crashed motorcycle.
The Miami Herald reports that was when the 17-year-old aspiring firefighter's instinct and first responder training kicked in. Rodriguez, a senior at Westland Hialeah High, pulled her car over to the side of the road and rushed over to the man to offer medical aid.
"I knew I couldn't panic," she said Tuesday during a press conference at her school. "At that point it was only him, only save him, buy him time. Everything else in such a scenario is all a blur except for what you're focused on."
It turned out the man was off-duty Miami-Dade police officer Ricky Carter, whose legs were badly mangled in the crash.
According to the Herald, Rodriguez took Carter's pulse and checked his breathing before another driver, who happened to be a nurse, pulled over to help. It was then that Rodriguez made the decision that has ultimately been credited with saving Carter's life -- she applied a tourniquet to stop his leg from bleeding.
"From there, all we could do was wait until the medical service got there," said Rodriguez, who is enrolled in her school's health sciences magnet program and is also a City of Hialeah fire cadet.
It wasn't until after firefighters arrived on the scene and Carter was airlifted to Ryder Trauma Center at Jackson Memorial Hospital that Rodriguez learned he was a 21-year veteran police officer.
Hialeah firefighters were so impressed with Rodriguez's quick thinking and first aid skills that they contacted her emergency medical responder teacher at Westland Hialeah -- retired City of Hialeah Fire Department Lt. Luis Espinosa.
"It's rather difficult to be 17 and comfort a grown man during a time like that," Espinosa said. "I was rather impressed with the first aid skills, of course, but I was more impressed with her grace under pressure."
Espinosa said applying a tourniquet is a tough choice because it can cause the patient to lose their limb, but in this case, he said, his student made the right call.
"In all honesty in that scenario, the most trained cardiac surgeon in the field would have done the same thing," he said. "They had to stop the bleeding, there was no other way to do it, the leg was probably going to be lost anyway, so it was a great decision at a great time."
Rodriguez, who was awarded a Certificate of Achievement by Miami-Dade Schools Superintendent Alberto Carvalho, is planning to attend college this fall and wants to continue taking first responder courses so she can eventually become a firefighter.
And her assistance for Carter didn't even end at the scene of his motorcycle crash. After she received her award and spoke at Tuesday's press conference, she and Carvalho rushed off to give blood at an emergency blood drive for the injured officer, according to the Herald.
