By Tech. Sgt. Thomas Kielbasa
Florida National Guard
(12/10/09) - When Staff Sgt. Sergio Valdes saw a dog running down Interstate 95 with its leash dragging behind it, he knew there was trouble.
Valdes, a squad leader with 1st Battalion, 124th Infantry Regiment, based in Miami, said he slowed his vehicle down immediately because the dog didn’t just look like an ordinary stray.
Valdes and two other Florida National Guard Soldiers were traveling from Miami in South Florida to Camp Blanding Joint Training Center in North Florida on Dec. 6, when they noticed the dog running through traffic on the interstate near Cocoa Beach.
That was when the Soldiers saw a vehicle on the other side of the road, upside down on its roof in nearly ten inches of water; the dog and three people had escaped, but one woman was still trapped inside.
Although cars were already pulling over and some people on cell phone were calling for help, it was the Guardsmen who reacted quickly.
Valdes, along with Staff Sgts. Gino Astudillo and Luis Robles of Alpha Company based in Hollywood, Fla., leapt from their van, dodged oncoming traffic and started running toward the accident.
With Robles directing traffic, the other two Soldiers approached the overturned vehicle.
“Staff Sgt. Valdes arrived first and from a few feet away dove into the window of the upturned vehicle,” Astudillo wrote in an accident report. “I entered the back and saw that only the front passenger, a Hispanic female – approximately 50 years old – was still in her seat with seatbelt on. She was bleeding badly from a facial wound but was still conscious.”
Valdes said that when he saw the lady hanging upside down by her seatbelt, his lifesaving skills he learned as a military combat lifesaver kicked in.
“She was bleeding everywhere, but she only spoke Spanish,” Valdes, who fled from Communist Cuba in 1999 and became a U.S. citizen, said. “And I was the only Spanish speaker there. The first thing I did was assess the situation, make sure nobody else got hurt.”
After he calmed the woman down Valdes dragged her out of the vehicle, and all three Soldiers helped stabilize her and another passenger.
“We didn’t know if there was any head trauma,” Valdes said, who helped keep the victims’ necks steady and performed basic first aid until paramedics and the Florida Highway Patrol arrived on the scene.
Valdes said their military medical training just took over when they saw the accident and they were really operating on “instinct.”
“We saw a lot civilians standing outside (the vehicle) and nobody was doing anything,” he explained. “We’re Soldiers, we’re in uniform…we just reacted, we didn’t think about it. I would expect someone to do the same thing for my family…It was really just a reaction.”
The Soldiers showed up later that day at Camp Blanding in wet and slightly blood-stained uniforms, but downplayed their actions in helping keep the accident victims safe until paramedics arrived.
“That day we were just able to help them out,” Valdes explained.
Staff Sgts. Valdes, Astudillo and Robles are scheduled to deploy to Iraq and Kuwait in January 2010 with the Florida Army National Guard’s 53rd Infantry Brigade Combat Team.
Florida National Guard
(12/10/09) - When Staff Sgt. Sergio Valdes saw a dog running down Interstate 95 with its leash dragging behind it, he knew there was trouble.
Valdes, a squad leader with 1st Battalion, 124th Infantry Regiment, based in Miami, said he slowed his vehicle down immediately because the dog didn’t just look like an ordinary stray.
Valdes and two other Florida National Guard Soldiers were traveling from Miami in South Florida to Camp Blanding Joint Training Center in North Florida on Dec. 6, when they noticed the dog running through traffic on the interstate near Cocoa Beach.
That was when the Soldiers saw a vehicle on the other side of the road, upside down on its roof in nearly ten inches of water; the dog and three people had escaped, but one woman was still trapped inside.
Although cars were already pulling over and some people on cell phone were calling for help, it was the Guardsmen who reacted quickly.
Valdes, along with Staff Sgts. Gino Astudillo and Luis Robles of Alpha Company based in Hollywood, Fla., leapt from their van, dodged oncoming traffic and started running toward the accident.
With Robles directing traffic, the other two Soldiers approached the overturned vehicle.
“Staff Sgt. Valdes arrived first and from a few feet away dove into the window of the upturned vehicle,” Astudillo wrote in an accident report. “I entered the back and saw that only the front passenger, a Hispanic female – approximately 50 years old – was still in her seat with seatbelt on. She was bleeding badly from a facial wound but was still conscious.”
Valdes said that when he saw the lady hanging upside down by her seatbelt, his lifesaving skills he learned as a military combat lifesaver kicked in.
“She was bleeding everywhere, but she only spoke Spanish,” Valdes, who fled from Communist Cuba in 1999 and became a U.S. citizen, said. “And I was the only Spanish speaker there. The first thing I did was assess the situation, make sure nobody else got hurt.”
After he calmed the woman down Valdes dragged her out of the vehicle, and all three Soldiers helped stabilize her and another passenger.
“We didn’t know if there was any head trauma,” Valdes said, who helped keep the victims’ necks steady and performed basic first aid until paramedics and the Florida Highway Patrol arrived on the scene.
Valdes said their military medical training just took over when they saw the accident and they were really operating on “instinct.”
“We saw a lot civilians standing outside (the vehicle) and nobody was doing anything,” he explained. “We’re Soldiers, we’re in uniform…we just reacted, we didn’t think about it. I would expect someone to do the same thing for my family…It was really just a reaction.”
The Soldiers showed up later that day at Camp Blanding in wet and slightly blood-stained uniforms, but downplayed their actions in helping keep the accident victims safe until paramedics arrived.
“That day we were just able to help them out,” Valdes explained.
Staff Sgts. Valdes, Astudillo and Robles are scheduled to deploy to Iraq and Kuwait in January 2010 with the Florida Army National Guard’s 53rd Infantry Brigade Combat Team.
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