Instinct. It’s something we don’t usually think about, because that’s the exact definition of instinct. It’s reacting to something without having to think about it. It’s doing something, it’s knowing something, and it’s acting on it. Peter Parker has his ‘Spider Sense,’ but we all, to some degrees, have something similar. When a situation occurs, and we’re forced to act, we do so without even thinking about it. Instinct comes in handy a lot of the time, especially when it comes to keeping ourselves or others safe.

At Transportation Partners & Logistics, we take our safety training courses seriously. You just never know when you may need to utilize techniques that could, quite literally, save somebody’s life. Whether they’re in the field or not, our technicians are trained in a variety of safety techniques to ensure that if and when trouble arises, our guys and gals can respond quickly, safely, and efficiently.

Such was the case recently when one of our technicians saved the life of a woman who was hit by a car.
It’s one of those stories that has to be seen, or read, to be believed.

Jarrett Terry was in Fort Worth, Texas. Just a day previously, he was in a safety training class for TP&L. He didn’t know how soon he would be utilizing the things he had just learned.

“I went over to Fort Worth just because I’ve never been there,” Terry stated. “So I was just going to explore for the weekend before I went to work on Monday. A friend was just showing me around town and on the way back to my hotel, we were getting in my car and there was this lady that was walking across the street. We didn’t really think anything about it, but then we heard a ‘BOOM!’”

That ‘BOOM!’ was a woman getting hit by a car.

“I turned around, looked real fast and saw that a truck had its headline hanging out,” Terry remembered. “The lady was just on the ground and I was like, ‘Oh my god.’ So I ran over there.”

Terry stated that there were a bunch of cones near the area, presumably from a construction site. So he decided to take a few of the cones and set them around the scene, to avert cars from getting close.

“I threw the cones out in the lane to get the traffic to go the other way,” he said. “That way I didn’t have to worry about them. Then, I had some people stop and I had them call 911. Then I got her in the recovery position, just so she wouldn’t move. And then we just sat there and waited for the ambulance to show up. I was like, ‘I know everything’s gotta be hurting.’ I can’t really move her around. So I got her in the recovery position to rest and just calm down, and told her the ambulance was on the way.”

Terry had just learned about the recovery position, and the steps to which you should assist somebody, the prior day. Never did he think he’d have to apply his knowledge so quickly.

“Luckily, I didn’t have to perform CPR or anything (though he knew how), because she was still communicating,” he said. “I just got her in the position and had her stay there. She kept trying to get up and move around and I just said, ‘No, stay there.’”

When somebody is the recipient of a traumatic event such as getting hit by a car, they tend to go into shock. This means they may try to move around while not thinking clearly. Their adrenaline is running high but they’re not making good decisions. Especially in the middle of busy traffic, this woman could have been even more seriously injured had she kept moving around. Luckily, Terry kept her still and, even more importantly, he kept her calm.

Not only did he save the woman, he also made sure that the driver of the vehicle didn’t get away.

“[The driver] pulled into this parking lot while I was trying to get somebody’s attention,” Terry said. “But then I saw him, like, start to back out and try to leave, so I ran over there real fast and said ‘Nope!’ and got the driver’s license plate number. Then he pulled back into another parking spot. I think he was thinking about leaving, but he didn’t.”

That’s not something TP&L teaches in its safety courses. They teach first aid, CPR, the recovery position and more, but they don’t teach a course on making sure criminals don’t perform hit and runs.

Everything else, however, was information that he had just been given.

“We went over all that in the training,” Terry said. “I’ve kind of heard it before, but since we just went over it, I just knew what to do. And that helped a lot. Because if it wasn’t for that, then I would’ve just been like ‘Uh, what do I do?’”

But Terry knew what to do. At least, he knew what steps to perform. TP&L can teach the technique. What they can’t teach is integrity. Terry could have just easily gotten back in his car and driven off. But that’s not the type of person he is. TP&L taught him the techniques. The integrity? That was something he was born with.

“Everything just clicked,” he said. “Like, I don’t really know how to explain it. It just clicked. And that’s the first time that’s ever happened. It kind of took me a second to realize what happened. But then once I realized that, everything else just kicked in.”

Call it intuition. Call it integrity. Call it instinct. Whatever you call it, it all means the same thing, which is this: The technicians at Transportation Partners & Logistics aren’t just good at their jobs. They’re good, period. If integrity is doing the right thing even when nobody is looking, then our technicians, as evidenced by Jarrett Terry, are second-to-none. They have integrity in spades and they are exactly what is good, and what is right, about Transportation Partners & Logistics.