Emergency Response Passing Nurse Saves Woman Trapped In Car

Brian Williams almost didn’t stop.

Lawsuits flashed before the nurse’s eyes along with brake lights when a truck slammed into a car in front of him in north Spokane.

But when Williams heard a teenage girl shriek, “Mommy’s dead! Mommy’s dead!” he pulled his Jeep to the roadside.

Inside a crushed Chrysler, Connie Grytdal slumped over the steering wheel, pinned in her seat. A tiny girl lay beside her, and a teenager with a gashed forehead crawled from the back seat.

Williams, an intensive care nurse, believed Grytdal was sliding into a coma. Her eyes were glazed; Williams felt no pulse.

“I was so frightened to even touch her,” said Williams, who has heard the stories about Good Samaritans getting sued for making injuries worse.

Instinct took over. Williams went to the little girl first. He tapped her chest until she began breathing normally, then crawled past her to Grytdal.

With help from another driver, he lifted the woman’s head to open her air passages. He read her name tag from the nursing home where she worked and shouted, “Connie! Connie!”

Rick Martin, a salesman on his way to get a video, tried to pry open the crushed driver’s-side door. April Howes, a pizza parlor manager, held a towel to the teenager’s bleeding head.

“I was a scared puppy,” said Williams, who directed the rescue at Francis and A Street. “I didn’t have any tubes or lines or airways to work with.”

At last, Grytdal coughed. Firefighters and paramedics arrived soon afterward.

Two weeks later, Grytdal, 41, lies in a bed at Sacred Heart Medical Center, where Williams makes his usual nursing rounds down the hall.

He checks on Grytdal’s condition every day, but the two have yet to meet.

Grytdal awoke three days after she pulled out in front of the pickup truck Nov. 17. She can’t remember it. Months will pass before she can return to Royal Park Convalescent Home, where she cares for elderly residents.

No one knows when she’ll go home, or ride motorcycles or play golf again.

Her boyfriend, Jim Hartinger, lists her injuries: “Fractured pelvis, three broken ribs, both lungs punctured, ruptured spleen, lacerated bladder, head injury.”

Grytdal’s 14-year-old daughter, Erica, received some 30 stitches in her forehead. Her younger daughter, Kirsten, 4, was uninjured.

Earlier this week, Grytdal’s sisters and brother credited Williams with saving her life. They thanked him, hugged him, shook his hand.

Williams squirmed under the attention. “I think really God was there. I think he saved her life,” he said. “I almost went on but something said, ‘No. Stop.”’

Tears halted Carrie Grytdal, the victim’s sister, midsentence: “We just want you to know how much …”

“We appreciate it,” finished Hartinger.

“Brian thinks he’s just a normal guy,” said Arlan Grytdal, Connie’s brother. “But we think he’s a hero.”

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color photo