School Staffers’ Quick Work Helps Save Crash Victim

School nurse Cynthia Monty spends most mornings tending to the health of students at Los Amigos High School, but on Wednesday her medical skills and quick wits might have saved the life of a woman hurled from her car in a bizarre traffic accident, officials said.

Monty and another school staffer, Lynn Pash, were praised by firefighters for keeping cool heads when confronted with a three-car crash at 11:42 that left one driver sprawled and bloody on the stretch of Newhope Street in front of the campus.

The driver of a Ford Escort, whom police identified only as a 34-year-old Orange resident, was driving east on Heil Avenue and apparently ran a red light at Newhope, police said. She was not wearing a seat belt, and the crash impact hurled her through her driver’s side window and about 35 yards down the street, said Officer H. Poe.

Pash, walking through the high school parking lot, heard the “awful sound” of the crash and spun around to see the woman in the street. As stunned onlookers and other drivers stood by, she raced inside the school to call 911. She also alerted Monty, who grabbed her first-aid kit.

The driver was “covered in blood” from a head injury and road burns, and her face was turning blue when Monty arrived at her side, she said. Monty found no pulse, and quickly realized the victim’s airway was blocked.

“I cleared her airway and she started turning a little pinker and breathing again,” Monty said. “There was a lot of confusion. I was going to start CPR, but the paramedics were there by then. They took over. This is a lot of fanfare, really, for two minutes’ work.”

No one else was injured in the accident, which remains under investigation, according to police.

Firefighter-paramedic Jerry Juergens said the victim was revived en route to Western Medical Center-Santa Ana and was later listed in good condition. Typically, the 18-year veteran said, bystanders can offer little in the way of emergency care, but not in this case.

“These two individuals are really role models,” the paramedic said. “They did a really commendable job. They did the exact right thing in a difficult situation.”

He added that a few more minutes without air could have left the victim brain impaired or even dead. “They made a real difference. They were truly heroic.”

The two heroes were reluctant to agree with that appraisal. And they were both struck by the surreal quality of the incident.

They wondered how the woman could be hurled through the car window and noted how she was shoeless--the impact literally knocked her out of her shows, which were found in the car, they said.

“The physics of it were really just weird,” Monty said. “The whole thing was strange. I’m still trying to figure everything out. But I’m no hero.”