Photo By David Bedard | U.S. Air Force Staff Sgt. Todd Noel is a logistics planner with the 773d Logistics...... read more read more
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Running up to the scene of the accident, Air Force Staff Sgt. Todd Noel didn't have time to make calculated decisions, he simply reacted.
Deployed to New Zealand for a site survey for the upcoming Exercise Southern Katipo, the logistics planner with the 773d Logistics Readiness Squadron and the other American Airmen in his van realized the other van they were traveling with and the five Airmen inside were hit during a collision with a 5-ton truck.
What Noel saw looked grim. The small European-style van was crushed like a soda can – the result of a T-bone collision at an intersection near the Royal New Zealand Air Force Base Ohakea.
“Running up to the vehicle, I noticed the driver and the passenger weren't moving, and I see three guys get out the sliding door,” recalled Noel, a native of Chino, California.
Noel's reaction and the long days he would spend helping the driver of the vehicle would, according to Pacific Air Forces leadership, demonstrate his dedication to duty and care for his fellow Airmen.
His immediate reaction was to carry out a sort of triage. The three Airmen evacuated themselves and had minor injuries.
Turning his attention to the passenger, Noel could see he was slumped over but quickly gained consciousness. When he got out of the van, Noel noticed a nasty cut on the passenger's head.
“So I looked at him and asked, 'Can you wiggle your fingers and toes?'” Noel said. “He said, 'Yeah man.' But he looked a little dazed.”
Noel pulled him to the side of the road. Getting a sterile towelette from a bystander, he instructed the passenger to put pressure on the wound before Noel went back to the wreckage.
The driver, a major, was still slumped over and unconscious. Noel asked another Airman to hold the driver's head while he wiped away broken glass from the major's head, face and hands.
“I kept slapping his leg to wake him up and letting him know emergency response personnel were on their way,” he said.
Noel said the time it took to run up to the scene, assess the situation, guide walking wounded to the side of the road, help the passenger, and get to working on the major was about 30 seconds.
Emergency services showed up in five minutes. Because the driver-side door took the brunt of the impact, responding personnel had to use a hydraulic rescue tool – better known as the Jaws of Life – to extract the major.
“When you looked at the door where the major was, you could see the emblem of the truck, so it was a direct hit,” Noel recalled. “He took almost all of the impact.”
Noel said the extraction took 25 minutes.
Because Noel was the Airman talking to and helping the major when emergency services arrived, they asked the sergeant to accompany the officer during the ambulance ride to the hospital.
Though he was conscious when they got the major to the room, he couldn't tell them what number to call to reach his wife. He could speak, but he could only rattle off random numbers.
Though Noel had a mission to tend to, he had a decision to make on what he would do for the rest of his trip to New Zealand.
“During that timeframe, there was a choice of what to do at this point: whether I go back or whether I stay,” Noel said. “It made sense for me to stay because he wasn't talking.”
Keeping faith
The first night Noel spent at the hospital, he made it his mission to get to know the staff, so he could ensure the best care for the major. He would leave the room for two or three minutes at a time to introduce himself to individual staff members, before returning to check on the major.
He didn't sleep the first night.
When the morning shift arrived, Noel repeated the previous night's drill of getting to know them.
Noel was able to get in touch with the major's wife, and he relayed the details of the accident and his medical situation. Noel said the major couldn't hide his frustration when he still couldn't string together sentences to speak to his wife.
“It was a difficult time for her and a difficult time for him, I'm sure, because he wanted to talk to her, but he couldn't communicate,” Noel said.
Chief Master Sgt. Anthony Johnson, PACAF command chief, paid a visit to the hospital to ensure the major was getting the care he needed. Noel briefed Johnson, the two swapped phone numbers, and Noel would keep the chief, the PACAF first sergeant, and his own leadership updated on a continual basis as to the major's status.
Given the choice to return to the exercise and leave the major's care to chance, or to stay and ensure he was okay, the decision was an easy one to make, Noel said.
“I was okay staying as long as he needed me to because my goal was to make sure he was fine and to make sure he got home,” he said. “I still had a job I needed to complete, and I was hoping to be a part of it. So I was trying to relay as much information as I could about what I knew, which would benefit the team while delivering care at the same time to get him what he needed.”
During the second day, the major could stay awake for about ten minutes at a time. By nightfall, he could relay numbers back, but his words were still muddled.
Noel stayed by his side, sleeping in a metal chair.
“There was no way to get comfortable with it, so I had to stay up walking around and drinking a whole lot of coffee,” he said.
By the third day, the swelling in the major's head came down. He could talk, pass memory tests and walk around for brief periods of time.
Noel was communicating with Tricare's medical insurance department to ensure the major's care was paid for, and he was in constant communication with leadership to keep them up to date.
Noel moved his belongings from his lodging to the hospital, sleeping in a bay the staff set aside for him.
“I wasn't getting enough sleep,” he said. “But it was worth it.”
Just doing his job
When it was time to discharge the major, Tricare flew a doctor from Sydney, Australia, to escort him back to the States.
The timing of the discharge, the discharge paperwork itself, and the logistics of moving the major all fell on Noel's shoulders. It was a burden the sergeant was more than willing to carry.
“This way, he didn't have to worry about it,” he said. “He didn't have to think or worry about it. All I wanted him to do was to get better.”
Noel may think he was simply doing his job helping the major as a fellow Airman, but the PACAF command chief, in an email written to Noel's leadership, expressed his thoughts otherwise.
“[I am proud] of Staff Sergeant Noel and how selfless and considerate he was in helping a fellow Airman get home safely after being injured in a major vehicle accident,” Johnson wrote. “That sounds relatively easy, but the task he had was very complex and something we don't usually ask of a staff sergeant. We asked him to take on a huge burden in that he was the primary focal point of the Air Force, and he handled himself in an extraordinary fashion.”
When he brought the major to the airport, Noel rendered military honors to the new wingman he helped through a traumatic accident and his immediate recovery.
“I shook his hand, gave him a salute, and said 'It was an honor and a pleasure,'” Noel said. “My mission to make sure he was back home was complete.”
| Date Taken: | 09.15.2017 |
| Date Posted: | 09.15.2017 19:28 |
| Story ID: | 248504 |
| Location: | JOINT BASE ELMENDORF-RICHARDSON, AK, US |
| Hometown: | CHINO, CA, US |
| Web Views: | 116 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
This work, Wingman: JBER Airman helps injured officer in New Zealand, by David Bedard, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
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