SUWANEE—Police in Suwanee say a woman lost her leg in an accident as she was walking along Satellite Boulevard Friday, but could have lost much more were it not for the quick thinking of a worker at a nearby business.
Mary Ann Sands was walking along the road in the morning when Luis Marte—whose injuries are described as minor—lost control of his Ford Mustang, sending it rolling onto the sidewalk and hitting Sands.
"Employees at EMC Security across the street...they witnessed it happen. One gentleman grabbed a couple fire extinguishers immediately and ran across the road, and another gentleman ran across the road and saw (Sands) laying on the ground with a severed leg," said Officer Chance Belcher, who worked the accident scene.
Belcher said the second gentleman, identified as Benjamin Jahnke in other media reports, pulled his belt off his pants and made a tourniquet to stop the bleeding from the wound.
"He sat there and held it, because he knew it was the right thing to do. He told me he didn't have any other type of training or anything like that. He just knew from being in the Boy Scouts that if you have an open wound like that and you're bleeding you need to put a tourniquet on it," said Belcher.
His actions likely saved Sands' life.
"After speaking with EMS and the doctors and nurses at the hospital on Friday, they all told me that if that tourniquet wasn't secured on her leg, then (Sands) would have died. She would have bled out there on the side of the road," said Belcher, adding that Sands was taken to Gwinnett Medical Center in Lawrenceville.
Investigators believe speed was a factor in the accident, and they don't suspect drugs or alcohol were involved. They are reviewing the video footage which, incidentally, was captured by cameras at EMC Security.
