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Mar 9, 2012 5 min read

There’s a lot I don’t know about the incredibly tragic story out of Greene County recently.

I have no idea what was going through the minds of the two Waynesburg University nursing students who pulled over on Interstate 79 on Feb. 20 after seeing an SUV wreck on an overpass near Mount Morris.

I don’t know if it was their training that kicked in, or their own sense of obligation to try and help someone in trouble that caused Alyssa Boyle, 22, of Salem, Ohio, or Cami Abernerthy, 21, of Sewickley, to get out of their cars and try to help Derek Hartzog, 21, of Washington, who was behind the wheel of his flipped Jeep Cherokee as it lay in the left lane in the middle of an overpass.

I don’t know if either of them considered simply driving past.

I don’t know if other cars did just that. I don’t know if they hesitated before stopping. I don’t know if they thought about it or just acted.

I don’t know what everyday worries or problems they had been thinking about that Monday morning before they came upon the wreck. They were on their way to Ruby Memorial Hospital in Morgantown for hands-on advanced training in the hospital and it was, in all likelihood, just another Monday morning for the students. One like how many others during their college career: filled with thoughts of school work, projects, deadlines and future plans. I don’t know if it had been a good morning, a bad one or just exceptionally ordinary.

I don’t know if they had any inclination what awaited them as they left campus for the 30-minute drive to clinical training.

I don’t know what they thought when they saw the wreck. I don’t know which of them pulled over first. Or who got out of their cars first. Or what shape Hartzog was in when they arrived at his battered Jeep.

I have no idea what it was like for those two women standing on the highway. When exactly, as they frantically attended to Hartzog, that it struck them just how exposed they were.

How surreal and terrifying it was to be simply outside of a vehicle on an interstate — when the everyday reality of driving on a highway morphs into something grotesquely different; cars and trucks, seemingly grown to monstrous sizes, flying past at 80 miles per hour, which seems impossibly fast when you’re standing still. I don’t know how fragile the wind of a passing tractor trailer buffeting them made them feel.

And I have no idea what it felt like to realize that a tractor trailer was bearing down on them.

I don’t know what several tons of metal hurtling straight for you looks like. I don’t know if the tractor trailer — something the women had surely seen countless times on the road but never really considered — was transformed into a nightmarish visage.

I don’t know if the trio’s lives flashed before their eyes; if they saw their parents parents or siblings or friends or if images of their childhood floated into their consciousness.

I don’t know who’s idea it was to jump over the guiderail. I don’t know if, in that split second, that they even processed that they were standing on an overpass. If they knew what leaping over that metal rail entailed.

I don’t know if they realized it was 40 to 50 feet — about four and a half stories — to the ground below. I don’t know if they looked first.

I don’t know what was going through their minds as they lay below the overpass, attended to by other Waynesburg nursing students on their way to Morgantown and then EMTs and eventually the doctors in the same hospital they were headed to for training.

I don’t know what it’s like to nearly die while trying to save yourself. I don’t know what it’s like to nearly die while trying to save someone you’ve never met before.

I don’t know how long it will take the three to overcome their injuries. I don’t know if they will.

I don’t know what their recovery will be like. I don’t know what the future holds for them.

I don’t know what happened to the truck driver. I don’t know if he stopped. I don’t know if he realizes his role in this tragedy.

And despite working at the same university they’ve attended for four years, I don’t know these women.

I don’t know anything about them as individuals, outside what their friends and classmates have shared since the tragedy.

I don’t know what prompted them to do what they did.

I don’t know if they regret it now or, if they saw the same scene, they would do it again.

There is a lot I don’t know.

But I do know that their family and friends are proud of them. That Waynesburg University is proud of them. That, like plenty of other people they’ve never met, I’m incredibly proud of them, too.

I know, with the utmost certainty, that these women — Alyssa Boyle and Cami Abernerthy — are heroes.

Real heroes.

And I know you join me in wishing them a fast and pain-free recovery. And I know, if you are so inclined, you’ll join me in praying for just that.

Brandon Szuminsky can be reached at bszuminsky@heraldstandard.com.