Photo By Maj. Amanda Hammond | Joint Task Force Guantanamo Soldiers, Sgt. Joshua Vigars, Spc. Jason Foulks, Spc....... read more read more
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GUANTANAMO BAY, Cuba - Four Troopers at Joint Task Force Guantanamo were coined by Command Sgt. Maj. David Carr, JTF senior enlisted leader, for their heroic efforts as first responders to a roll-over vehicle accident here near Taft Gate, late afternoon May 15.
The incident happened around 3:50 p.m. when five minors were driving at high speeds around Magazine Road coming from Windmill Beach.
“While we were observing the vehicle, we noticed that during their turn they over compensated. They swerved twice, once to the right, once to the left, and then they over compensated on one of the swerves and that’s when they rolled the vehicle,” said Spc. Samuel Soto, a Soldier working external security at Taft access control point. “The vehicle slid about 50 to 100 feet.”
As soon as the vehicle came to a stop on its side, Soto and Spc. Lysander Hortua, another Soldier working security, rushed to the vehicle and began extracting the personnel. While Soto evaluated the personnel, Hortua ran back to the vehicle and turned it off because it was on its side leaking fluids.
“My main concern was to just get them out of the vehicle. I wasn’t even thinking about anything else at that point,” Hortua said.
While the personnel were being extracted and moved, an emergency call came over the radio from Taft Gate requesting support.
“We heard the call over the radio. All we heard was roll-over, and we happened to be pretty close,” said Sgt. Joshua Vigars, one of the four Soldiers coined. “We were around the corner getting ice for our cooler, and we were able to immediately just respond over there.”
Vigars and Spc. Jason Foulks arrived in time to search for a combat lifesaver bag and immediately began applying first aid.
“My biggest concern was broken limbs,” Foulks said. “I was afraid for broken limbs, and I just started thinking ‘How am I going to make some sort of make shift sling out of whatever I had,’ then I helped out the one with the more severe injuries, and I assessed the other ones.”
A couple of minutes after applying first aid to the injuries, EMS and Fire arrived and transferred the injured to U.S. Naval Station Hospital Guantanamo Bay.
Like any other deployment, service members are required to pass a combat lifesaver course before deploying. All four Troopers attributed their ability to assess the casualties and apply first aid in a timely fashion to their training.
“We were all prepared for it,” Vigars said.
Soto agreed, “We were just at the right place at the right time just doing our job. We expect anybody else to do the same for us anytime. We are just looking out for our fellow personnel over here at GTMO.”
The Soldiers’ leadership couldn’t have been more proud.
“It’s good to see that the training has paid off, and they were able to react accordingly,” 1st Lt. Michael Molina said. I’m really proud of them for what they did.”
| Date Taken: | 05.15.2015 |
| Date Posted: | 06.16.2015 14:42 |
| Story ID: | 166823 |
| Location: | GUANTANAMO BAY, CU |
| Web Views: | 64 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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