Nurse Honored For Her Heroic Actions

By Greg Mills

ONTARIO (CBS) — The Ontario Fire Department Thursday gave its highest civilian honor to a nurse, who risked her own life trying to save a badly injured paramedic.

Nurse Jody Kelley does not consider herself a hero, but others disagree.

Kelley, a labor and delivery nurse at Pomona Valley Hospital was on her way to work on Mother's Day when she witnessed an ambulance slam into a freeway exit signpost.

She stopped and administered CPR to a paramedic, who was in grave condition.

Here efforts gave the paramedic a few hours of life -- enough time for his family to gather around him and say goodbye before he passed away later that day.

"It gave me great comfort. And then to find out that he also donated his organs is just awesome," Kelley said.

The paramedic had been returning to Pomona from Loma Linda at 6 a.m. when he crashed into a signpost at the 4th Avenue exit on the 10 Freeway.

While Kelley performed CPR on the man, a car struck a chunk of guardrail, which slammed into the ambulance.

"I think back as to really how dangerous it was and I don't know, I don't even think about jumping out of that rig," Kelley said.

"She didn't run away, didn't quit, continued to do the job that she did to get him out and perform one-person CPR on him," Ontario Fire Department Captain Mike Mondino said.

Mondino and his crew saw Kelley in action when they arrived at the scene. Thursday they presented her with the prestigious Civilian Citation for her heroic duty.

"It's such an honor that somebody thought that I deserve something like this, especially from the fire department because they see it every day," Kelley said.