MEA Energy Association (MEA) is honored to present Kellen Vetter, natural gas technician, of We Energies, with a Life Sustaining Award for using a tourniquet to save a person’s life.
Vetter came upon two vehicles with the passengers waving down a truck coming from the opposite direction. Vetter put on his strobe lights and pulled over and noticed a car lying at the bottom of a little hill resting on the driver’s side of the frame. Vetter got out and asked if someone called an ambulance and the people on the side of the road answered, “yes, they are on their way.”
Vetter went to the rolled vehicle and found an elderly woman in the driver seat with what appeared to be a severed left arm. Vetter asked the woman to slow her breathing, tell him her name, and he asked if she felt any pain anywhere else but her arm. From his prior military experience, Vetter knew that her arm needed a tourniquet to slow the bleeding, so he asked if someone had a belt. One of the older passengers gave him one. Vetter took the belt, got on his stomach to better access the car, and explained to the woman his training, and what he was going to do.
Vetter then reached into the vehicle from the shattered driver side window, wrapped the belt around her upper left arm, and tightened the belt. The woman told Vetter, as he was tightening the belt, that it hurt, and Vetter explained that it meant the tourniquet was working. Vetter told her to keep talking to him and breathing deep and slow and to let him know if she was getting lightheaded while he held the belt on her arm until the ambulance arrived. The paramedics placed an actual tourniquet above the belt and took the woman to hospital.
“The people who receive a Life Sustaining Award reflect what is good and noble in society,” said John Gann, membership sr. vice president of MEA. ”Kellen’s efforts made an enormous impact, one that deserves to be recognized and celebrated. He is a credit to We Energies and the energy industry.”
We Energies serves electric and natural gas customers in areas of Wisconsin and Michigan’s Upper Peninsula and has been an MEA member since 1974.
MEA Life Sustaining Awards are presented to individuals from member companies who have saved the life of another. The Meritorious Service Award is granted to recognize those who have performed actions in the service of another that are considered above and beyond. Applications for the MEA Life Sustaining and Meritorious Service Award are reviewed and approved by the Executive Committee of MEA’s Board of Directors. Read about all MEA awards at https://www.meaenergy.org/awards.
For questions contact John Gann, johng (at) MEAenergy (dot) org, or (651) 289-9600 x105.