DULUTH, Minn. – A Oregon Air National Guardsman on vacation jumped into action after witnessing a violent crash.
The 173rd Fighter Wing said last month, Master Sergeant Osten Coaty—a Kingsley Field Airman—was enjoying dinner with his family while on a train in Minnesota.
Suddenly, a car tried crossing in front of the train. It was hit, and Coaty witnessed it being tossed into nearby trees.
Without skipping a beat, Coaty handed his youngest child to his wife and ran out of the train car, jumping to the ground as the train slowed to a stop.
Coaty saw an older man in the wreckage, pinned under the passenger side dash. There was also a lot of smoke and blood. According to Coaty, the man appeared to be close to death.
Coaty and the crash victim were joined by a trauma nurse who happened to be on the train. After checking vital signs, she said the man was going to die if he wasn’t removed from the car immediately. “So I opened the door and laid him down as gently as I could so as not to disturb his spine,” Coaty explained.
Over the next few minutes, Coaty and others worked to stabilize the man, who had a badly broken leg and an apparently serious head injury. Eventually, the man was loaded into an ambulance and taken to a nearby hospital.
The U.S. Air Force said Coaty’s quick response was triggered by an incident which occurred when he was in high school. In that instance, he recalled driving by a head-on crash with people slowly gathering around. At the moment, he decided there wasn’t much he could do, so he kept driving. Later on, he read a news article stating one man died from injuries sustained in the crash.
“That was part of my motivation,” Coaty said. He explained that’s why it’s important for him to do something to help if he can.
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