The bus was sitting at the intersection of South Broadway and Walnut, waiting for the signal to change.
“The driver pointed when we asked where that was coming from, to this man outside his car at the intersection,” she said.
Both girls told the driver they wanted to get off to see what was going on.
“I jumped out and we came up to this guy standing outside the passenger seat and another guy sitting in the passenger seat and he was holding his neck and he said ‘my son has just been shot,” she said.
Unbeknownst to her, the teenage boy in the passenger seat was Colin Brown and the man shouting for help was his father. Both were driving on I-55 minutes before when police said a bullet came through the windshield and struck Colin.
Paniucki knew she’d been placed there for a reason. She told Brown’s father she was an EMT.
“Looking back on it, I’m glad, I’m so glad I was there to kind of take over and do the best we could for this kid in that moment,” she said.
Paniucki graduated from Respond Right EMS Academy in St. Peters a month ago. She plans to attend medic school next year before eventually joining a fire department.
The skills she learned in school, playing out in a real life or death crisis.
“I could see he was applying pressure to a wound in the front of his neck,” she said. “I couldn’t find a pulse so I knew we needed to start CPR immediately.”
With the help of her friend and Colin’s dad, the three lifted him out of the seat, she said, and laid him flat on the sidewalk where she began CPR.
“The dad could barely breathe himself, given what had just happened, like anyone would be struggling,” she said. “But when I told him to give his son breathes along with my compressions, he breathed for his son.”
After performing CPR for about 10 minutes, another bystander approached Paniucki and offered to relieve her. Between the two of them, they continued with CPR for an additional 10 minutes before an ambulance arrived.
According to the 911 dispatch call logs, a 911 call was made at 10:36 p.m. Police responded and deemed the scene secure at 10:46 p.m. The first fire truck arrived at 10:50 p.m. and the ambulance arrived at 10:52 p.m.
Brown remains in the hospital fighting for his life. Paniucki said she’s grateful she was there to help give him the best chance she could.
“Hearing somebody scream for help like that, there was no time to sit and worry or second guess myself,” she said. “I kicked right into action and it all just came to me.”
$15,600.00
$750.00
$543.96
$1,050.00
$1,000.00
$95.00
$30.00
$135.00
$74.97
$94.00
$109.00
$75.00
$14.00
