A 20-year-old Army sergeant is being credited with saving the life of a driver who crashed on the interstate and he did it with the help of a hoodie and a ballpoint pen.
Sgt. Trey Troney was driving through Sweetwater, Texas to visit his family in Raleigh, Mississippi for Christmas last month when he saw the accident occur.
He immediately pulled over to the side of the road, ran over to the car, and found Jeff Udger slumped over the steering wheel with a hefty gash on his forehead.
With the help of two other good Samaritans, Troney pried open the door of the damaged car and used his New Orleans Saints hoodie to stop Udgers head from bleeding.
Thankfully, Udger was still conscious enough to crack jokes, saying: Well, this is Cowboy country, so I dont know how I feel about you wrapping me up in a Saints hoodie.
The situation became more dire, however, when Troney noticed that the left side of Udgers chest had stopped moving due to a collapsed lung. The Army Sergeant rushed back to his car to grab a first aid kit which had fortunately been leftover from recent military training.
Troney hoped to use the kits Needle Chest Compression (NCD) to relieve the pressure in Udgers lung, but the needle was too small. With time running out, Troney found a ballpoint pen amongst his belongings and suddenly had an idea.
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The sergeant took the pen apart and used the empty ink tube to relieve the pressure in Udgers lungs.
I took the NCD and put it right in the hole and kind of wiggled (the pen) in with my hand in between the ribs and you just started to see the bubbles come out of the tip, and I was like, OK, were good, said Troney.
At that very moment, a state trooper arrived on the scene and apprehensively asked if Troney had indeed just stuck an ink pen into the lung of a civilian.
I was like, I did, recalled Troney. And [the state trooper] was like, hes on no pain meds, and I said, oh, he felt it, but hes unconscious. He lost consciousness as I was running back to my Jeep because he had lost a lot of blood.
Minutes later, paramedics arrived on the scene and whisked Udger away to the hospital. The injured motorist is expected to make a full recovery, and physicians have credited Troney for being the reason why Udger is still alive.
Troney was initially worried that Udger would press legal charges for having a ballpoint pen jabbed between his ribs, but on the contrary, Udger regained consciousness and immediately began contacting military and government officials so he could praise the sergeants quick-thinking.
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Finally, Udger managed to send Troney an email in which he offered to replace the bloody hoodie and thanked him for saving his life.
Young man, you will always be my hero, wrote Udger. Continue to give back to this world and the people in it. You truly will never know when you will make a life-changing impact to someone.
The young sergeant said there was no need to replace the hoodie, and he was simply glad that he was in the right place at the right time.
I was in a pair of jogging pants and a T-shirt on the side of a highway and somebodys life depended on me slightly knowing a little bit [about emergency medical care], Troney said. It wasnt anything crazy, but to [Udger], it was his world.
Put simply, he needed an ink pen to the ribs luckily, I had an ink pen.
