Modern War Heroes

These people put their skills to the test and won back this man’s life. You don’t have to be on the battlefield to be a hero.

[J.A.] Magana [trooper with the N.C. Highway Patrol] said the driver was heading south on Lake Road around 7:30 a.m. when he lost control of the Nissan SUV, overcorrected, flipped and submerged wheels up into the ditch with about 3 to 4 feet of water.

The Marines following behind the crash stopped, jumped into the canal, pulled the man to safety and then breathed life into his lungs.

Staff Sgt. William Carlson, of Marine Attack Squadron 231 and a veteran of Iraq and Afghanistan, was heading to rifle practice at Camp Lejeune with three other Marines, Cpl. Shari Hansen, Sgt. Eric Lyman, and Sgt. Caleb Bailey, all of VMA-231, when the crash happened.

“We stopped the car jumped into the ditch and tried to get the doors open,” Carlson said. “We couldn’t get the doors open on the driver’s side so we jumped over to the other side and got the back passenger door open.

“We got his seatbelt undone. He was tangled up in it. We cut him loose and pulled him out the back passenger door. We had to remove the headrest to get him past the seat. He was underwater for about three minutes.”

They then began working with three other Marines who arrived at the scene just after the crash to save the driver’s life.

“Once we got him out, he didn’t have a pulse and he wasn’t breathing,” Carlson said. “We started CPR. After about a minute of CPR, his pulse came back. He started breathing about 10 or 15 seconds after we stopped compressions when we got a pulse.”

One of those on the scene was a 31-year-old Marine corporal who didn’t want to give her name.

“One Marine took his pulse, another Marine checked for breathing, and I was on top doing chest compressions,” she said. “We continued to do that until he started spitting out water, and we put him on his side to get the water out. Read on…