A Metrobus operator may have saved a man’s life while on duty Tuesday evening in Northeast D.C.
Tim Hudson, a bus operator with WMATA, was on his usual D6 route when he noticed a cab had been in an accident on the right side of the street around Columbus Circle by Union Station in Northeast D.C.
As Hudson approached the end of the circle, he noticed the cab in the left lane of the median strip. The driver was slumped to the right inside and still wearing a seat belt.
After Hudson took swift action, there’s hope for the unidentified driver.
Hudson immediately pulled his bus over, grabbed his safety vest and exited to investigate. When he approached the cab, Hudson noticed the driver was still slumped over, shallowly breathing with saliva dripping from his mouth.
The driver’s door was locked, and Hudson was unable to get it open. He ran around to the passenger side of the cab where the window was down.
Hudson then began hollering into the cab, in an attempt to wake the driver up. Because of the accident, Hudson was unable to get the passenger side of the door to open.
Eventually, he was able to rip the door open to get to the driver inside. Hudson then began shaking the driver with the hope of waking him up.
“He wasn’t responsive at all,” Hudson said. “At this point, I didn’t have my cellphone with me, it was on the bus in my bag. So I had to run back to the bus and I let the passengers on the bus know we had a medical emergency and I need to call 911.”
Hudson stepped off the bus and dialed 911, describing the scene to the dispatcher before returning to the unresponsive cab driver.
The dispatcher ordered Hudson to remove the driver from the car and immediately begin administering CPR.
“I let her [the dispatcher] know I had never done CPR,” Hudson told WTOP. “So then I turned to other pedestrians on the sidewalk and called for help and a Spanish gentleman comes over.”
Hudson told WTOP the car was not moving before he and the pedestrian began attempting to extract the driver. However, once they started to remove the driver, the cab suddenly began to move.
Because the pedestrian had his arms underneath the driver, he was able to sustain his weight. However, the movement of the car caused the cab driver’s feet to fall out.
Quick on his feet, Hudson stepped over and applied the break, putting the car in park. Once Hudson and the pedestrian removed the driver from the cab, the dispatcher began describing to Hudson how to administer CPR.
“She said ‘OK, this is what you need to do,'” Hudson said. “‘Place your hands on his chest and one … two … three … four … one … two … three … four as hard as you can.’ And I began to do [administer] that to him.”
Shortly thereafter, the fire department arrived, and the EMT took over.
When asked if he was scared, Hudson responded, “I wasn’t caught up in being scared. There wasn’t time to be scared. I knew that if that was me, I would want anybody to do the same for me.”
After getting a bit choked up, Hudson added: “It hurts my heart that the accident must have happened a minute or two before that and nobody assisted this man. Society we live in now, people just don’t care about people no more. So for me it was just being in the right place at the right time, and I knew God had me there for a reason.”
Hudson, who has been with Metro for eight years, said the entire experience has inspired him to enroll in CPR training and recommends other Metrobus drivers do the same.
“You never know when you’re going to need it, and you might not have your cellphone or nobody might not be around so I think everybody should have it.” Hudson said.
Hudson said after his CPR attempts, the driver’s breathing appeared to stabilize.
However, the driver is still hospitalized, and his condition in unknown at this time.
