Association recognizes airman for heroism

  • Published
  • By Lois Walsh
  • Air Armament Center Public Affairs
Life-saving actions have earned an Eglin sergeant the Noncommissioned Officer Association's Vanguard Award for heroism.

Senior Master Sgt. David Popwell, superintendent of the 96th Ground Combat Training Squadron here, saved the lives of three people injured in a two-car collision on Florida's Highway 20.

The NCOA presents the Vanguard Award to an NCO who has "performed a particularly heroic act, on or off duty, that resulted in the saving of a life or in preventing serious injury."

On that afternoon, Popwell came around a bend on Highway 20 to see smoke and dust settling from the collision. As a volunteer firefighter, auxiliary policeman and a security forces airman, he said his training kicked in, and he immediately stopped and assessed the five people in the cars.

"In the first vehicle, one young man was turned around with his feet in the back and his head between the two seats," Popwell said. "He was unconscious as I opened his airway."

While working on the first victim, Popwell said he could see another young man some 20 feet away on an embankment. There was little he could do for him but clear his airway, as Popwell said it was obvious the man had life-threatening injuries. In the meantime, Popwell said he could see smoke coming from the hood of the second car.

"I checked, but the driver was dead," Popwell said. "The woman in the passenger side was screaming to get the baby out."

Hampered by a stuck front door, Popwell said he yelled to others who stopped, instructing them to get his medical gear from his truck.

"Before a person could return, the back door opened, and we got the child out, and the mother vaulted over the front seat to escape through the back," he said.

Popwell got others to keep the child warm and cut the battery cable so the car would not explode while he went back to check the most seriously injured. A passerby called 911, telling the operator to send more medics and emergency equipment.

"I checked the young man on the hill and knew he would die," Popwell said. "I needed medics; I was running back and forth and didn't have the right equipment, only bandages, gloves and tourniquets."

When the ambulance finally arrived, the technician helped stabilize the first victim, Popwell said. But the second died.

"Sometimes I second-guess if he had to die, but I know there was nothing else I could have done," Popwell said.

When emergency vehicles arrived on scene, Popwell said that gave him a chance to "fade into the background," with just a handshake from one of the bystanders who could only watch helplessly while Popwell controlled the scene.

"It seemed like forever from the time I stopped -- like slow motion -- while I was trying to do everything," Popwell said. "It would have been so much easier with another military person there who could treat for shock and stabilize until the other medics got there."

While it is an honor to win an award for doing what comes naturally, Popwell urged people to learn first aid and CPR.

"Just don't blow off training," he said. "We could have had five people die without it." (Courtesy of Air Force Materiel Command News Service)