North Carolina House Rep. Kelly Hastings, who represents Gaston and Cleveland counties, may serve from Raleigh most days. But last Friday he saw the chance to help a family hands-on.
Hastings was headed home from his last day in session in the capital when he was first on the scene of a serious wreck in China Grove.
Hastings said he stayed with the family members involved, performing first aid and keeping them calm until paramedics arrived.
But he doesn’t want any praise. Hastings said he was just doing what anybody else would.
“There’s nothing heroic about it,” Hastings said. “I would’ve done it for anybody.”
It was around 1:45 p.m. last Friday when Hastings said he was driving on Interstate 85 near China Grove and came upon the wreck.
His family was out of town and he needed to get home to let their dog out. Session was running a little over, so Hastings decided to head out early.
On his way home, he saw the crash.
According to the N.C. State Highway Patrol, a Chevrolet was going South on I-85 when the driver began to feel tired. The driver veered slightly off the road then overcorrected. The car began to roll.
It flipped twice, once on the interstate and once off the road, before hitting a tree in a ravine by the highway.
“It had gone down in so far I couldn’t see it until I got up to the edge of the road,” Hastings said.
The wreck left six injured, including four children.
Hastings stopped and began to help the family.
“I first made sure they were all breathing then made sure they weren’t all bleeding too bad in certain places,” Hastings said.
Hastings’ training in first aid from his time working as a parole officer came back to him that day, he said.
He told the grandparents of the children not to move them in case they had neck or spinal injuries and tried to keep them all as calm as possible.
“The grandmother was screaming, kind of in a panic,” Hastings said. “I think she was in shock.”
A little girl in the car was also panicked, he said. She was asking for her book bag, so Hastings found it among the other items that were thrown from the car.
When paramedics arrived, the family was taken to a local hospital for treatment.
Hastings took home a valuable lesson that day.
“As I think back on it, probably the thing that struck home the most was to be thankful for what we have because we never know when our lives can be disrupted at a moment’s notice,” Hastings said.
You can reach reporter Lauren Baheri at 704-869-1842 or Twitter.com/lbaheri.