KEESLER AIR FORCE BASE, Miss. -- An Air Force Reservist on his way to get training ended up using his training as a first-responder at an accident scene.
Senior Airman Roderick McMillan was enroute to the last day of his August unit training assembly here when a car heading toward him in the southbound lane of I-110 swerved, flipped and landed upside down in the median. A fire erupted in the front of the car.
"I jumped out of my car, and ran toward the crash. I remember saying out loud. 'Here I am running toward a burning car,'" said McMillan, an air transportation journeyman with the 41st Aerial Port Squadron.
McMillan and another civilian broke the rest of the driver-side glass and began removing the driver from her car. While they were trying to remove her, she became upset and they worked to calm her down.
Fortunately for McMillan, helping someone while in a medical crisis was fresh on his mind since he had just trained with his unit in self-aid buddy care classes during the July UTA.
"Last month, we had just gone over all of this training. My training kicked in as we were removing her from the vehicle. We were keeping her head still in case of neck injury, and I began to look for other wounds when I found blood rushing from her head," McMillan explained.
Minutes later, emergency personnel were on the scene treating the morotorist and the fire was extinguished.
"After it was over, I just got up, brushed myself off and went into work and went on with my day," McMillan said.
It was the first time McMillan was invovled with an accident and he feels he responded how he always thought he would.
"That's just really the type of person I am. It is just the way I am wired. When I see someone who needs help, I just help them," McMillan said.
Lt. Shante Arnett, a nurse with the Labor and Delivery section of the Keesler Medical Facility also arrived on the scene after McMillan had helped remove the driver from the vehicle.
"He was already at the vehicle and he helped me move her further away from the vehicle," said Arnett.
McMillan is currently a therapy assistant at Ellisville State School in the recreational therapy department and is an apprentice canine training at K9 Evolution.
It was a privilege to help someone in need and I would do it again in a heartbeat, said McMillan.