Three young Marines who were visiting the Grand Canyon helped save the life of a man who was hit by a bus inside the park last month. Managing editor Tami Roleff has more on these heroes…
Parker Batson, Caleb Cook, and Caleb Schwindt were touring the Grand Canyon on the park’s Blue Line bus over Labor Day weekend when their bus stopped because of an accident on the road ahead of them. They noticed that a man was trapped under another bus. The three friends, who were Marine lance corporals attending the ground radio repair course at the Twentynine Palms Combat Center’s Communications and Electronics School, convinced their bus driver to let them off and they ran over to help the injured man. They discovered the man had been hit and dragged by the bus; he had a 3-inch gash on his head, and the skin on his left leg had been torn off from his thigh to his calf.
Batson and Cook tended to the victim’s wounds while Schwindt directed traffic and kept more than 100 onlookers back from the scene until paramedics and law enforcement arrived on the scene about 15 minutes later. The emergency medical technician said that the Marines’ actions were the only reason the victim didn’t die from his injuries before paramedics arrived, and, he added, the injuries were the “most fascinating and gruesome” he’d ever seen.
For their bravery and decisive actions, which the emergency medical technician said saved the man’s life, they were awarded the Navy-Marine Corps Achievement Medal last week when they graduated from their training school in Twentynine Palms. The three lance corporals have since left the base to travel to their duty stations. Job well done to these American heroes.
