Seabee on the way to Gulfport Navy base rescues man in flipped car off Highway 49
A Seabee on his morning commute to the Navy base in Gulfport sprung into action and rescued a driver who flipped his car after falling asleep at the wheel, a Navy official said.
Utilitiesman 2nd Class Joseph McCord was driving on U.S. 49 from Saucier to the Naval Construction Battalion Center Gulfport when he noticed a car’s tail lights flicker and vanish from the roadway in front of him, according to a Facebook post NCBC Public Affairs Specialist Brian Lamar. It’s not clear from the post what day the incident occurred.
As McCord drove past, he saw a faint light from the car on the edge of the woods line down an embankment. The car had flipped onto its roof.
“McCord slammed on his breaks, pulled over an jumped into action,” Lamar said in the post.
The Seabee saw a “bloody arm hanging out of the half-crushed driver’s side window” and noticed steam rising from the under hood, the post said. McCord, who also smelled fluids from the car seeping out, shattered the passenger window to get to the occupant.
McCord was able to pull the victim from the carnage and provide first aid until help arrived.
“When I got the driver out, I noticed dark red arterial blood pulsing from his arm. That’s not a good sign. Within two minutes, I had gotten him out of the car and applied a tourniquet that I had in my vehicle. I started to pull my phone out to call for help, but right at that time, a Mississippi Department of Transportation vehicle had pulled up and had already called 911,” McCord told Lamar.
McCord is near completion of his seventh year in the Navy and will soon move his family to the Mississippi Coast from Texas.
He told Lamar the driver of the car reached out to him and offered to take him to dinner, and they went and had wings together on Monday.
“I am glad I was there at the right place and the right time and knew what to do,” he said.
The Sun Herald has reached out to Lamar for additional information.
This story was originally published April 20, 2022 at 12:07 PM.
