Nursing students save man whose heart stopped in tractor-trailer crash

ST. LOUIS (KMOV/Gray News) – Three nursing students are being called heroes for jumping in to help a man who was injured so badly in a tractor-trailer accident that his heart stopped.

The nursing students, all in their first semester at East Central College, saw the accident as they returned to class after lunch three weeks ago. Driver Shane Kurk, 37, was struck by a tractor-trailer while at an intersection in Union, Missouri, KMOV reports.

“Pretty bad. It was a semi versus a car. That is never a good situation,” says student Toni Sells.

“I saw his head come out the window and hit his door. I knew we had to go now,” said student Audrey Schroeder.

Driven by their desire to help others, the nursing students stopped their car and rushed to the scene of the accident. Olivia Reed was the first to reach the driver’s door.

“I immediately checked for a pulse. I didn’t feel a heartbeat,” she said.

Kurk’s car was hit by the tractor-trailer with such force that his heart stopped beating. Reed used a procedure called a sternum rub to assess Kurk’s neurological status and then began performing CPR. After two rounds of chest compressions, Schroeder stepped in to take over and detected a heartbeat.

Within a short time Kurk started breathing again.

“It felt like an eternity, probably only 20 seconds, 30 seconds, and he was gasping for breath,” Schroeder said.

In the meantime, Sells went to check on the truck driver, who she said was hyperventilating.

“I tried to calm him down a little bit, just regulate his breathing. He grabbed his phone from his truck and offered to call someone for him and called his wife,” she said.

Paramedics quickly arrived and took over the scene.

The nursing students say they were so focused while helping that the full depth of what they had done didn’t hit them until they left.

“Every time we got back in the car, we all looked at each other and I said, ‘Guys, we just saved a life,’” Reed said.

After the accident, Kurk is still in the hospital in intensive care. He faces a long road to recovery, but his family is grateful he is still alive. His brother adds that Kurk is showing signs of improvement.

“To see a car crash like that in front of you, it’s a whole different thing to be one of the people jumping into it,” Sells said.

Now that they are back in the classroom, all three future nurses have new confidence that they are on the right career path.

“It was a very traumatic event, but it was also extremely rewarding for us to have the confidence in ourselves that we should become nurses,” Schroeder said.

The students credit their college instructors for knowing and reassuring them to intervene and help.

“There was no hesitation because there was no time for hesitation. The confidence in my abilities comes from my teachers,” Sells said.

Union police say the accident remains under investigation.

Copyright 2024 KMOV via Gray Local Media, Inc. All rights reserved.