MCB Quantico -- Chief Petty Officer Sean Newman was off duty and on his way home on a Friday afternoon when a pickup truck ahead of him on Russell Road ran off the road and hit a tree. The actions of the senior enlisted corpsman with the Delta Co. of the 4th Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion at Camp Upshur over the ensuing several minutes may have prevented permanent injuries and also earned him a Navy Achievement Medal.
April 26 was supposed to be a half day for Newman, but it was almost 2 p.m. when he managed to leave Camp Upshur for his home on the main side of Marine Corps Base Quantico. About three quarters of a mile outside the gate to the west side of the base, the pickup truck in front of him rounded a curve. When he saw it next, he said, its front end was smashed and it was wedged between two trees in a ravine, with smoke pouring out of the hood.
“I was fortunate enough to have my medical supplies that day,” he said. “I don’t always carry a medical bag, but we’d just had a reserve weekend.”
Newman and several other motorists pulled off the road, and he grabbed some of his supplies. He found two females in the truck in civilian attire, both wearing seatbelts. He didn’t learn until the following week that the two were Marines.
“What struck me immediately was the passenger, who was slumped over with her hair over her face,” he said. Blood was coming from her forehead.
The driver seemed alert, and an Air Force major who had stopped tended to her while Newman tried to reassure the semiconscious passenger and assess her injuries. “I noticed she had a sort of L-shaped laceration — a deep laceration — across her left eyebrow,” he said.
Holding her head back and keeping her immobile, he used gauze to apply pressure to the wound while trying to figure out if she had other injuries.
“As she gradually came to, she indicated her back hurt,” he said. “The No. 1 thing with motor vehicle accidents is you have to basically assume there’s a spinal injury, so I tried to keep her head immobile until the ambulance came.”
Weeks later, he learned that the passenger had indeed fractured her back, in addition to sustaining a concussion and a broken nose.
Maj. Charles O’Neill, inspector-instructor for the 4th LAR Delta Co. and site commander for the Reserve Training Center at Camp Upshur, said Newman’s actions were typical of his character. “Chief Newman would not walk away from a challenge or someone in need,” he said. “He is just one of those committed service members, a great father, husband and son, and just an all-round great American,” O’Neill added.
Newman was awarded the Navy Achievement Medal on June 7.