A Kentucky teenager is being hailed a hero as her quick decision to render aid helped save a gunshot victim.
“I knew it was serious because when I saw him sitting on the sidewalk, I could see it in his eyes,” said Adam Carter, father of 16-year-old Nylaia Carter.
Nylaia Carter and her dad were leaving her after-school basketball practice in Louisville, Kentucky, during the evening of Aug. 31 when they drove past a man in distress.
“There was a man that was sitting in an upright position on the sidewalk, and I said, he doesn’t look good, and it looks like he’s been shot and Nylaia said stop,” Adam Carter said of the moment.
Once the father-daughter duo drove back to where the unidentified man was sitting next to his car, their suspicions of a dire situation proved true. The man had been shot a short time earlier and had tried to drive himself to the hospital, but did not make it due to blood loss, according to the Courier Journal. Nylaia’s quick thinking possibly saved his life as she pleaded with her dad who turned around to check on the man who was covered in blood. The 16-year-old said she cautiously approached the injured man with the intent to render immediate aid.
“It’s protocol to say, ‘I’m Nylaia Carter, I’m trained to stop the bleeding, can I help you? and his response was yes,” Nylaia said.
The Louisville teen says she resorted to training she received from an emergency procedures class at her high school, which also taught students how to render aid for stabbing victims and other emergencies, including seizures. Carter says she immediately went for a sweatshirt she kept inside her bookbag to create a tourniquet and stop the bleeding.
“I started checking his pulse and seeing if all his vital signs are there and to see if he’s conscious,” Nylaia said. “I tried to find the wound and I thought it was on the lower abdomen, leg sort of area because there was so much blood down there, but it was actually on his left arm,” the teen continued.
Carter admits she was nervous jumping into action because the gunshot victim lost so much blood. After about five minutes of applying pressure to limit the bleeding, an ambulance arrived. Once paramedics were on scene, and took over care for the gunshot victim, and Carters began to process the seriousness of the situation. For Adam Carter, he says seeing his daughter’s persistence to help someone in need was heartwarming.
“To see her spring into action, and not have any fear, and it seemed like it was normal to her, it was a confirmation to me that she has a call to doing this type of work,” said Adam Carter.
Nylaia says she and her dad were able to see the gunshot victim — whose identity has not been been reported as of this writing — in the hospital a few days after her heroic actions. Louisville police told WDRB, “after first responders arrived, the man was rushed to University of Louisville hospital and is expected to survive thanks in part to Nylaia’s quick action” and police are still looking for the shooter.
“I was nervous going into see him, but it was good to see all his family surrounding him laughing and talking when I went in there, it wasn’t sad, they were happy to see me,” Nylaia said upon meeting the man she helped assist before paramedics arrived.
“Maybe if my daughter hadn’t been there, they don’t know if he would have made it at all, so she gave him a chance,” Adam Carter said of his daughter.
Nylaia says after she graduates high school, she plans to study physical therapy at an HBCU.
