Langley captain helps save local family

by Airman 1st Class Kimberly Nagle
633rd Air Base Wing Public Affairs

3/12/2014 - LANGLEY AIR FORCE BASE, Va. -- On the evening of Feb. 11, 2014, a family was driving to their home in Suffolk, Va., when the driver, London Dubois, lost control of the vehicle and plummeted into a retention pond. A nearby resident scrambled toward the vehicle desperate to help the family trapped within.

Fortunately, a U.S Air Force doctor was walking nearby, and sprang into action.

The doctor, Capt. William Brooks, 633rd Medical Operations Squadron emergency medicine physician from Langley Air Force Base, Va., assisted in recovery actions at the scene of the crash, providing CPR to a young girl.

"I was out for a walk with my dog [when] I heard my neighbor's voice yelling for help," said Brooks. "When I reached the [accident site] I saw there was a car in the pond."

Once Brooks arrived to the scene, he focused on the unconscious 2-year-old girl who was just removed from the water along with her older brother, by Brooks' neighbor. While the brothers' breathing was spontaneous, he was still conscious.

"I began doing CPR on the child," said Brooks. "After about four cycles of CPR, she took a shallow breath and coughed."

Inside the neighbor's home, the children were taken out of their wet clothes and given dry clothes to warm them up while waiting for an ambulance to arrive. Brooks continued to monitor the young girl until the paramedics arrived, at which point he carried her to the ambulance. Brooks assisted the paramedics as they set her up on a heart monitor and covered her with packs to raise her body temperature.

After the girl was safely in the ambulance, Brooks ran back to the pond to check on his neighbor who had just pulled Dubois from the water. The pair assisted paramedics until they stabilized him on a backboard.

"Unfortunately, we never saw the mother of the children," said Brooks. "It was dark, the water was murky and we had no idea where, in relation to the car, she was located. By the time the dive team had arrived and located her, it was too late. She was transported to a local hospital, but unfortunately passed away."

Brooks felt confident in his ability to respond to the incident because of his training as an emergency medicine physician, having experience in resuscitations.

Even though he did not know the family involved, Brooks has checked in with them since the incident, offering condolences help and support.

[The family is] "overwhelmingly grateful and thankful for what we did," said Brooks.

"I absolutely feel that if we weren't in the right place at the right time that night, the outcome would have been vastly different," said Brooks. "It was truly a team effort. While it was unfortunate the mother passed away, we were able to save three lives that night. Without us there, things could have been much worse."