Corpsman saves civilians

Guns Magazine, Jan, 2009 by Nicole A. LaVine

On the morning of July 15, 2008, as Seaman Apprentice Brian T. Earle sat half-asleep in the passenger's side of a car traveling down a Southern California interstate, the last thing on his mind was the possibility of needing to save the lives of a few strangers. Earle, who was then a corpsman with 1st Battalion, 7th Marine Regiment, was traveling back to Twentynine Palms from San Diego with Lance Cpl. Alexander Huff, a scout sniper he recently deployed to Iraq with, when they witnessed a pick up truck with a trailer over correct, sending the truck full-speed through a guardrail.

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"The trailer and truck kind of jack-knifed," explained Earle, a Houston native. "Then as the truck went through the guardrail, the trailer broke off and the truck went flipping down the hill."

Earle and Huff pulled to the side of the road, first on the scene. There were three passengers--two women and a man. The man, in the front passenger's seat, was unconscious along with the driver. The woman in the back seat was conscious and asking for help.

"It's weird how when you are trained, you're told to make an assessment of the situation as it happens," said Earle. "I found myself doing that as I ran over there."

When Earle and Huff reached the truck laying on its right side, they found gasoline spilled on the ground and smoke emitting from the undercarriage of the truck. Earle's first thought was to turn off the vehicle since he knew some newer model vehicles use a cyclic air conditioner that sparks when it starts, he said.

Earle kicked in the back window to help the woman in the backseat out, but couldn't reach the front of the truck from the backseat to assist the other passengers. Earle kept the woman calm by talking to her and instructed a nearby civilian to talk to her and keep her awake in case she had suffered a concussion. Earle approached the front of the truck and discovered the driver still unconscious and had lost an arm.

Another man arrived and used a knife to chip and pry the shatterproof windshield from the car. "I got pretty cut up on my hands because we were just grabbing glass and nothing else," said Earle. "But getting those people out of the car took precedence over everything since it was smoking."

The windshield out, Earle used a belt to slow the now conscious woman's bleeding. Huff, Earle and the unidentified Samaritan helped the man slide out of the truck. They then climbed into the truck and supported the woman as Earle cut away her jammed seatbelt.

Once out of the truck, Earle used a splint of wood from the guardrail and some long underwear to make a tourniquet on the woman's missing arm. Fire trucks soon arrived to find the two men covered in blood and gasoline standing with the accident victims. "The CHP (California Highway Patrol) told me I was an idiot," said Earle. Seaman Apprentice Brian T. Earle, left active duty service in July and has been submitted to receive the Navy and Marine Corps Commendation Medal.--Cpl. Nicole A. LaVine, Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center Twentynine Palms