Shaw medic provides off-duty care to wreck victims

A husband and wife who were injured in a car wreck in Sumter County recently were lucky to find a helping hand from a trained Air Force EMT.

Senior Airman Chris Aubuchon was driving home from Shaw Air Force Base after work around 11 p.m. one night when he noticed a minivan quickly approaching a pickup truck on U.S. 378. He said he saw the minivan rear-end the truck, causing the pickup to hit the median and go airborne before spinning and coming to a rest facing the opposite side of traffic.

"I keep an EMT bag with simple first aid bandages, splints, things like that, in my car," Aubuchon said.

The Air Force aerospace medical technician ran to the truck after calling 911 to check on the occupants, where he found the husband and wife awake and alert but suffering from lower-body pain.

"She had her face covered. She didn't want to ruin her makeup, she said," Aubuchon said.

The husband's ankle and the wife's leg were injured, he said.

After checking to make sure they both were aware of their surroundings and not bleeding, Aubuchon started to wrap the wife's leg. Another airman climbed a tree and grabbed a branch they used to splint her leg. Aubuchon made a wire splint for the husband's ankle.

Neither of the injuries were life-threatening, but the comfort in knowing someone was there to help and to begin the first-aid process before first responders arrived was appreciated by the couple, he said.

"The adrenaline was going, but with our training we realize that that's going to happen. We go into a situation that's maybe not the safest or the most stable area, especially when we have to deploy. But we learn to take a breath, calm down and focus on the task at hand," he said.

Aubuchon said he has always wanted to serve his country.

He said a key aspect of his medical and Air Force training is to learn to improvise.

"First, I wanted to make sure there were no vehicles coming and that the scene was safe," he said. "When I first came up, they were definitely relieved to see someone was there helping."