Medic saves girl from ATV in creek

WASILLA — A 15-year-old girl driving down Knik-Goose Bay Road ended up in Crocker Creek Saturday night with her ATV pinning her in the water.

The call to respond to the spot near Settler’s Bay Park came in at about 8:27 p.m., according to the borough’s deputy Emergency Services Director Clint Vardeman.

Rich Boothby, a battalion chief with the Central Mat-Su Fire Department said the girl, “was driving her four-wheeler I guess on the shoulder, right on the shoulder of the road there, it rolled over, landed on top of her inside the creek,” pinning her underneath.

Boothby said that Shawn Brown, a Central Mat-Su responder with fire station 6-2 on Knik-Goose Bay Road happened to be driving by.

“He immediately stopped, jumped out, got the four-wheeler off of her,” and initiated first aid, paying close attention to the girl’s spinal cord, Boothby said.

Asked how Brown managed to get the full-sized ATV off of the girl, Boothby said, “He just rolled it off. I think there was a couple other people that were driving by that assisted him.”

Medical rules preclude emergency responders like Boothby from releasing names of patients. Alaska State Trooper Spokeswoman Megan Peters said she didn’t have that information either.

“We didn’t respond to it,” Peters said. “By the time we were called (a LifeMed helicopter) was already on scene and was lifting off.”

Vardeman said the helicopter was on scene by 8:36 p.m. Boothby credits the fast response to LifeMed’s decision to base a helicopter at Wolf Lake Airport north of Wasilla.

He said the helicopter flew the girl to an Anchorage hospital and was called in mostly because of the nature of the wreck. ATV accidents tend to produce spinal injuries and she was complaining of some hip pain. Plus, she was in the water.

“You always have a chance of aspirating water into your lungs and then you can get infections and stuff for that,” Boothby said.

Boothby said the girl was wearing a helmet.

He knows because responders later found it, downstream hung up in the trees across the road. It had washed through a culvert. The girl’s mother was on scene within minutes.

He said the girl was lucky that people arrived so quickly to help her, saying that the story had the best outcome anyone could have hoped for.

“She was just lucky that anybody was there to witness it,” he said.

Contact Andrew Wellner at andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com or 352-2270.