Unless someone is a trained professional, you never quite know how you’ll react in an emergency. San Antonio, Texas, resident Rene Villarreal-Albe recently witnessed a potentially deadly situation and responded quickly.
The man was driving down the highway with his wife when he noticed something strange. A car was swerving in and out of traffic before hitting a barrier on the side of the road, only to swerve back into speeding traffic. Realizing something was likely seriously wrong, the couple decided to pull closer to the erratic vehicle.
They were right. The driver of the vehicle was not only in trouble but also completely unconscious. With no one else in the car to help, Villarreal-Albe had to make a split-second decision. He knew that if he didn’t stop the car, it could seriously injure or kill someone. So he decided to stop it himself.
Villarreal-Albe is a welder, not a police officer. He isn’t trained in vehicular maneuvers to immobilize a moving vehicle. But that didn’t stop him from trying.
“I was just really worried about his well-being,” Villarreal-Albe told KENS 5. “Seeing his state like that, it’s terrible. I don’t wish that upon nobody.”
The man essentially mimicked a maneuver often seen on television used by law enforcement. It’s called a PIT maneuver, which stands for Precision Immobilization Technique, according to the Federal Law Enforcement Training Centers. The technique has been used since the 1980s.
The Good Samaritan used his truck to the best of his ability to force the runaway SUV to stop. It worked. Shortly afterward, a licensed-vocational nurse who witnessed what happened joined the couple. The unnamed nurse jumped out of her car and immediately began CPR on the unconscious man.
“This lady started CPR right away, and he lost color, but he came back, and that made it worth it,” Villarreal-Albe said.
In a separate interview, the unnamed nurse explained why she pulled over, sharing that several other motorists stopped to help as well.
“I just felt that I need to stop, so I pulled over to the side, and I put my hazards on, and I ran over there,” she told KENS 5. “I just immediately started CPR, and I was going at it for a little bit, and I was doing mouth-to-mouth. I was able to see the color come back to him, and he was in and out. He was gasping for some air.”
The other Good Samaritans were the ones who pulled the man out of the car and laid him on the ground. This allowed the nurse to begin chest compressions, though it was her first time ever performing CPR on a real person. Within minutes, she became fatigued. Thankfully, another woman trained in CPR took over, giving the nurse a break. Between the two women, they were able to continue CPR until an ambulance arrived.
There’s no word on what caused the man’s medical emergency, but the extraordinary teamwork of a group of strangers saved his life. He is still recovering in a San Antonio hospital.
