21-year-old Stephen Wilson happened to get off work early before driving home down a quiet Indiana highway. From his driver’s seat, he spotted two ladies women on the concrete with two motorcycles splayed out on the road. They’d been hit by a car while riding their bikes. Stephen, an American Marine, was a mere 90 seconds behind the accident.
Instead of driving past the devastating scene, Stephen bolted out of his car and discovered one of the women was bleeding out of her severed leg. Without thinking twice, his Marine corps training kicked in. He began searching for whatever resources he could find to make a tourniquet, including belts from onlookers and dead corn stalks he pulled from the nearby cornfield.
In the video below, Stephen not only describes his harrowing experience, but also how to make a tourniquet should one ever find themselves in such a horrifying situation. Stephen got the bleeding to stop and waited with the two women for seven minutes, holding their hands and comforting them until emergency crews arrived. That night, he went home but couldn’t sleep without fully understanding the conditions of the two crash victims he saved.
Because of Stephen, the women are alive today. He won an award for his heroic deed, but he says he’s no hero — he simply did what he needed to do.