Kathryn DePauw
The Record-Eagle, Traverse City, Mich.
(TNS)
Three months ago, three teens expected to enjoy the National Cherry Festival fireworks display, but found themselves in the path of an erratic driver. Barely avoiding injury, they stayed and helped in the aftermath —and earned national recognition.
The 15-year-olds are part of the Traverse City Young Marines unit and will be awarded with National Life Saving awards on Oct. 10 at 6:30 p.m. at the Michigan Army National Guard Armory.
This honor for their actions is the first time the awards have been earned in the unit’s history.
On that July 6 evening, Wyatt Humphrey was walking with his friends, Patience Moore and Trevor Everson, to watch the fireworks display over Grand Traverse Bay. While crossing Grandview Parkway, after a car struck a pedestrian in their path, Humphreys pushed his friends out of the truck’s path, said Brian Wheelock, Traverse City Young Marines unit commander.
Humphrey, Moore, and Everson stayed calm and used their training to help with crowd control as emergency services helped the victim, Wheelock said.
“They stayed at the scene, they kept the crowd back. There was an EMT on site almost immediately so they assisted and did whatever the EMT asked them to do as far as collecting information or anything like that,” he said.
Traverse City Police Department records show that a car left the roadway at Grandview Parkway and Marina Drive that evening around 9 p.m. The 63-year-old driver became “overwhelmed by the lights” and drove the car off the road, hitting a 27-year-old Temple City man in the elbow and a 51-year-old Florida man with the front right side of his car, according to the police department report.
The Temple City man refused treatment and the Florida man was taken to Munson Medical Center for non-life-threatening injuries, the report indicated.
On Oct. 10, the teens will be presented with Life Saving Ribbons for their heroic actions. Young Marine Private Humphrey will receive the Life Saving Ribbon, 1st Degree, for pushing his friends out of harm’s way — or as the manual described it: “Acts of lifesaving, or attempted lifesaving without regard to the risk of one’s own life for the benefit of another human being.”
Young Marine Lance Corporal Moore and Young Marine Private Everson will receive the Life Saving Ribbon Award 3rd degree for the assistance they provided after the accident.
The awards are being granted at the highest level possible.
“These awards can be given at different levels in our organization: the local level, the regiment level … a division level … and then there’s the national level,” Wheelock said. “The recommendation for the Life Saving Awards went all the way up to national, and national saw to award them at the national level — which is pretty darn cool.”
Michigan Regiment Commander Lisa Sparks will be present for the awards ceremony, but Wheelock said he hopes to be able to recognize and honor the teens.
“Hopefully, I will be able to give my Young Marines their awards,” he said. “They’re all great kids.
“I think the skills that we teach, the leadership skills and stuff they learn as a Young Marine, and the friendships they develop, it’s important to them, and it’s shown in what they did and how they did it.”
Kathryn DePauw reports in partnership with Report for America.
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