What You Won’t See On the Korean News
A couple of Camp Walker soldiers are being credited with aiding an injured South Korean motorist:
As they crept forward, they realized the car stalled in the lane had been in some sort of accident. It was “dented in pretty good,†said Bird. He said he “could see the right front passenger tire was … sideways, not upright.â€
When the soldiers, and the two South Korean support personnel in the car with them, realized no one was assisting the accident victims, they jumped into action.
This isn’t the first time I have heard or seen somebody not being aided after an accident. I was riding in a military inter-camp bus when it got in an accident my last tour here. Glass showered the bus driver seriously injuring him and the driver of the vehicle in front of the bus was even more seriously injured. The driver of the dump truck that caused the accident of course drove off. There was about 20 US soldiers on the bus who aided the injured. Not one Korean vehicle pulled over to assist. American paramedics quickly responded and stabalized the two injured Koreans. I had a Korean friend tell me before that people are hesistant to help in Korea because they might get sued. I guess Korea doesn’t have a good simaritan law like the US. Anyway here is what these soldiers did:
Portillo, the first to reach the window, said he was shocked by what he saw.
A passenger had flesh “about the size of a softball missing from his elbow†and was bleeding through the open fracture, he said.Portillo used his uniform belt as a tourniquet while Bird removed his uniform T-shirt and pressed it to the wound to help stanch the flow of blood.
Both Bird and Portillo credit their military training for preparing them to react.
Some how I don’t think I will wake up tomorrow and see this headline in the Korea Times: Good Samaritan US Soldiers Save Korean Motorists Life. Anyway great job by those two soldiers.
I'm glad you posted this. There isn't enough about the US doing good things in the blogosphere anymore.
By the way, i was coming back from Daegu last week in the mother of all rain storms and there was a three car pile-up on 45. Against my better judgement, I stopped and asked if anyone needed assistance. All I have is a first-aid kit and probably couldn't have done much if it was more serious. At least I stopped. No one else did.
Glad to see some Soldiers from 1st SIG stepped up and did the right thing even though just by helpiing a KN so many things could have gone horribly wrong. Not often you find many with that patch (1ST SIGLA BDE.) who will.
Personally I hope they get thier awards sent forward to COL Patterson for ARCOMs.