Visit the College's News & Events Site or Return to Connections

Student Receives Recognition for Heroic Effort
by Emily Rowlands

Josh Kirby, a Ph.D. candidate in Instructional Systems, was recently awarded a National Certificate of Merit by the Juniata Valley Council for the Boy Scouts of America for his heroic efforts in helping to save a man’s life in Washington D.C. late last summer.

Kirby has been involved in scouting for 18 years and currently holds the title of unit commissioner for the Nittany Mountain District. He serves as the liaison between district administration and local troops. “I attribute many of my achievements to my involvement in scouting, including my ability to help the man in D.C.” Without his extensive CPR training through the Boy Scouts, Kirby would have been unable to react to the situation, and it was surely a situation that required an immediate response.

Josh Kirby

The morning of Aug. 9, 2003, Kirby and two friends were walking down the National Mall en route to a scheduled tour of the Washington Monument when they heard muffled wailing coming from two men near a park bench. A middle-aged man was bear-hugging an elderly man, while a panicking woman stood nearby. Kirby and his friends approached the three individuals, all of Indian decent, to find the elderly man struggling to breathe, his face turning purple. It was difficult to understand their broken English, but it was obvious the man was suffering from cardiac arrest. It was also discovered that they were related, father, mother, and son. The first reaction of Kirby and his friends was to call 911, and with the help of two joggers who had also heard the wailing, they were able to establish an exact location along the Mall.

Kirby and the male jogger, a former U.S. Navy Seal, then conducted an initial survey of the situation. They found the man to be non-responsive and could find no pulse or sign of respiration.

The next step was to perform two-person CPR, which fortunately, both men were skilled in. Kirby agreed to breathe into the man’s mouth, while the jogger performed chest compressions. By this point, a small crowd had gathered, and several individuals expressed concern that Kirby had no protection from possible infections contracted through mouth-to-mouth contact with the man. “I never hesitated, though,” Kirby recalls. “I had faith.”

Kirby and the jogger continued to perform CPR until police and paramedics arrived 12 minutes after the initial 911-phone call. By this point, both men were exhausted, and Kirby had visible signs of the man’s mucus on his shirt. The paramedics then took control of the situation, while the police gathered a report from those involved.

The crowd slowly parted as the man and his family sped away in the ambulance. Meanwhile, Kirby and the jogger exchanged contact information. He and his friends then accepted a ride in a police car to the Washington Monument, although they were late for their tour. Of course, the three were welcomed after the policeman explained the situation. At this point, they received a round of applause from the ticket takers and tourists. Before beginning the tour, Kirby washed himself with anti-bacterial soap in the restroom. “It was at this point that the reality and impact of the morning’s events hit me,” he says.

Kirby still expresses amazement at the fortune of those involved to be in the right place at the right time. He left the following day for State College, while his friends headed further north, and the jogger returned to Arizona. “I am also thankful each of us had appropriate training for a crisis situation,” he says. “It is incredible that individuals of different lifestyles were trained under the same standards and were able to save this man’s life.”

Kirby and the jogger kept in contact following the incident and were thrilled to discover the man was expected to make a full recovery, only days following the trauma. Thanks to their immediate performance of CPR, he suffered no loss of brain function.

Nearly three months after that morning in August, Kirby spoke with the son over the telephone. The son said his parents had returned to India, and his father was still doing well. “I was so excited to hear the news, and the son was so thankful for my act, that we arranged a visit in March,” says Kirby. He planned to go to Virginia to visit the son during spring break and hoped to set up a teleconference with the father and mother in India.

The family has offered to express their gratefulness to Kirby through some type of reward; however, Kirby feels the Boy Scouts of America would be a more appropriate recipient. “Without my scouting experiences as a youth, and now a professional, I would not have had the ability to help in this situation,” he says. “I attribute everything to my involvement in the Boy Scouts.”

###