Third-year medical student Liz Groesbeck was like other excited Las Vegas Raiders fans recently headed to the first full-capacity game in the new Allegiant Stadium since the team moved to “Sin City.” She was in an Uber on a first date just blocks from the game that would pit her Raiders against the Seattle Seahawks when she saw a man on the ground and people gathered around him.
Abandoning her keys, cellphone, and date in the Uber, Ms. Groesbeck popped out to see if she could help. The Uber had been stuck in traffic, so Ms. Groesbeck thought she’d still be able to jump back in the car if she wasn’t needed.
Then she heard screams. “That didn’t concern me. People scream whenever anything unexpected happens,” said the 28-year-old student from the Kirk Kerkorian School of Medicine at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV). But the screams were only a small indication of what she would discover on closer inspection. The arm of the middle-aged man lying on the ground was detached. An abandoned gold SUV remained on the curb nearby. It would turn out to be a hit-and-run of pedestrians by a driver later charged by police with DUI.
“I was one of the first people there,” Ms. Groesbeck recounted for this news organization. “I knew this guy did not just fall. I told someone to call EMS and I got someone to take his wife somewhere else [away from the bloody scene]. She was obviously very distraught. …At a couple of points she was hysterical.”
Next, Ms. Groesbeck, who, ironically, had finished her emergency general surgery rotation the day before, focused on the patient. Kneeling beside him, she determined that the immediate priorities were to stop the bleeding and clear his airway. “He was barely breathing,” she recounted. Another student who Ms. Groesbeck believes was pursuing a medical degree — there wasn’t time for formal introductions — offered to help, along with bystanders headed to the game.
“The crowd was very energetic. It was a beautiful thing.” Ms. Groesbeck cited the spirit of saving lives that developed from the October 1, 2017, Las Vegas country music festival shooting. “People are very willing to try to help others in any way they can.”
MS. Groesbeck, leading the effort, asked for belts, “and bystanders immediately provided that,” and the other student followed Ms. Groesbeck’s directions to apply tourniquets with the help of those around her. With the blood loss being stemmed, Ms. Groesbeck’s next priority was making sure the patient could breathe.
Appealing for clothing to clear the man’s airway, “five shirts were handed in a circle to me.” She only needed one jersey to scoop the blood out of his mouth manually to free his airway.
She overruled well-meaning suggestions to lay the man on his side — which she was concerned could paralyze him — or use a straw to help him breathe. “I did not want to stick anything down his throat.” Meanwhile, there was so much traffic that night around Allegiant Stadium that when the ambulance couldn’t get any closer the firefighters and paramedics exited the vehicle and ran to the scene.