Watkins kept clearing blood from the airway, and a bystander tossed her a mask when she began breathing for the victim. A student nurse arrived and assisted with CPR after the victim’s pulse was lost. After both victims were out and the truck was engulfed in flames, rescue crews arrived. The woman was intubated and transported by Care Flight, the flames were extinguished, and the news cameras rolled. Watkins told the student nurse to go on TV so her professors would know she had a legitimate excuse for missing school. She herself called work to say she’d be late, went home, changed her clothes, and went to work.

Watkins trained as a paramedic and ran emergency squads for a year before joining the Dayton (Ohio) VA Medical Center 19 years ago, where she works as nurse manager of the ICU and ACU. “I never forgot those [emergency] skills, and they got me in the ICU,” she says. “I still work the floor as much as possible to keep my skills up and in touch with reality.”

Nobody would have known what she did, but when the police decided to issue awards to the rescuers, they asked the VA which nurse was late that day.

The female passenger is recovering from serious neurological damage, and “it was hard to accept recognition at the expense of someone’s trauma,” Watkins says. “I accepted so I could see the others. We came together in tragedy, but the feelings they gave me I’ll never forget. “I care for heroes every day. The other rescuers say I’m the hero they couldn’t do without, but they’re heroes because I couldn’t have done without them.”