Nursing Students Rush to Moped Rider’s Aid After Manchester Crash
By Dave Pierce Union Leader Staff
At 8 a.m. Wednesday, May 9th, Ajla Mustafic and Katie Tewksbury took their last final exam for nursing school. Shortly after 4 p.m. they got a real-world test of their skills, when they were unexpectedly saving a life outside a Manchester Dairy Queen.
With police already at the Dairy Queen for a separate incident, an officer and the two soon-to-be graduates of Manchester Community College rushed to the aid of a man on a moped who had just been hit by a car crossing Second Street and heading down Harvell Street.
The man on the moped, whose name was not released, suffered a life-threatening head injury, according to the two students, who will soon take their board exams for licensure. A video shows the rider hitting the hood of a car and then striking the stone curb before collapsing like a crumpled-up piece of paper on the sidewalk.
Mustafic ran to her car, where she had a small first aid kit and a big, fluffy sweatshirt to help stop the bleeding, she said. In about 30 seconds, the injured man received potentially life-saving care before emergency responders arrived a couple of minutes later.
“This guy had police, two nurses and the fire department on scene within like three minutes,” said Kevin Dion, the general manager and son of the Dairy Queen’s owner.
Mustafic and Tewksbury, who will both be nurses at the Elliot Hospital, had been returning from celebrating the end of one era and jumped right into the next after the car in front of them hit the moped.
“We were just waiting to take a left on Second Street and it was very clustered there. The woman in front of us was going straight. The moped was coming from the right side and she hit him. And he flew in the air,” Mustafic said Friday in a phone interview. “I was like, ‘Oh my God, Katie, we need to stop.’”
On the Dairy Queen security video, Tewksbury is the first to come to the man’s aid. Mustafic and the police officer then run over. The three started administering first aid and talking to him while assessing the severity of his head injury.
“I just think this was very instinctual, not even a question. We made sure he was OK, breathing and talking,” Mustafic said. “The adrenaline and the compassion just came out of both of us at the exact same time.”
Mustafic, a 28-year-old from Hooksett and track coach at Manchester Central High School, and Tewksbury, a 21-year-old who grew up in Auburn, will both graduate from Manchester Community College on May 20. They credit their nursing professors for not just teaching them the clinical skills they need, but also preparing them for the real world.
As the day went on, this moment just hit us, like it was more than just an accident. It was a message, a reminder after all the years of studying, sacrificing, going to clinicals, that this happened for a purpose. I feel like we were exactly where we should have been at the same time,” Mustafic said. “This is our calling. Nursing isn’t just a career. It’s a purpose. And I feel like that day, we both answered to it.”
The condition of the moped rider was not released, but Dion and Mustafic said they heard secondhand that he would recover.
Dangerous intersection
Dion said he’s been trying for years to get a traffic light installed at the intersection where Second and Harvell streets meet up with an Interstate 293 exit ramp. He’s spoken to Manchester aldermen, the previous mayor and former Gov. Chris Sununu.
City officials told him it’s a state problem because it involves the highway offramp. Previously, officials told him there’s no light there because the state doesn’t want traffic to back up onto the interstate.
But traffic backs up regardless, he said, because it’s difficult for drivers coming from I-293 to turn left or go straight at the intersection.
“I sell ice cream; I’m not a traffic analyst. But something has to be done,” Dion said.
Cars crash at the intersection about twice a week, he said. And because there’s no light, traffic backs up and someone on a smaller vehicle like a moped is even harder to see amid the every-man-for-himself driving behaviors.
“Until somebody dies, I don’t think the state will do anything,” Dion said. “I don’t want somebody to die in front of my store.”
Next up for Dion: Contacting Gov. Kelly Ayotte, a known Dairy Queen aficionado who expressed her disappointment when the family shut down its Nashua Grill & Chill, Dion said.
Dion offered each of the nursing students a $25 gift card and praised them on the Dairy Queen’s Facebook page.
He’s hoping they can get their deserved desserts next week, as a graduation present.
