Airmen Pull Family from SUV After Wreck

SrA Ramon Curtis was riding his motorcycle to work at Columbus AFB, Miss., on July 24 when he saw an SUV flip onto its side. Curtis, a weather forecaster with 14th Operations Support Squadron, could hear a man inside the vehicle screaming, so he ran toward him. He was trying to pull the bloodied man out of the car when 2nd Lt. Christopher Kowalski came out of the main gate and saw what was happening, according to a Columbus AFB release. Kowalski, a student pilot with the 14th Student Squadron, heard the man’s two little girls screaming for help, and said he ran over to start trying to get them out of the vehicle. The younger girl was stuck in a car seat, the airmen said, Kowalski went through the trunk to get her unbuckled and hand her to Curtis. The driver’s hand was “pretty messed up,” Curtis said, and he used his deployment training to attempt to put a tourniquet on the man’s arm. “I just wanted to make sure everybody was OK. I can’t let anything bad happen to these kids,” Curtis said. “I have kids of my own, so I think my fatherly instincts took over.” Kowalski said there was never a question of whether he would get involved: “You see someone in trouble, you go help them,” he said.