By Ben Olson
Reader Staff
When Nicholas Douglas was driving down the mountain Dec. 9 from a job on Schweitzer, he saw something that didn’t look right. Instead of just passing by, he decided to stop and investigate. The decision likely wound up saving a motorist’s life.
“We were driving past that switchback on the mountain where everyone goes to look at the view,” Douglas told the Reader. “I noticed a set of tracks that went straight off the road, and they just disappeared.”
Nicholas Douglas, left, stands with Luis Martin, right, after Douglas pulled Martin from his vehicle after it drove off the cliff from a switchback on Schweitzer Mountain Road. Courtesy photo.
Douglas turned to his partner and told her he had to turn around.
“I go back up there and, sure enough, there’s a car down there, 70 feet down over the cliff,” he said. “The guy launched over the hillside. He came around that corner and couldn’t stop, and went straight off the end.”
Though it was snowing and he was wearing tennis shoes, Douglas scrambled down the hillside to pull the driver out of the vehicle. The driver was later identified as Luis Martin, who was in town visiting from California.
“I could see tail lights blinking down there,” Douglas said. “I got him out, but he was passed out. I got him to wake back up and dragged him up the hill some more, then the fire department showed up.
“I’m just lucky I was there and saw the tracks going off the road,” he added. “With the snow coming down, the tracks would’ve been erased pretty quick. I saved this dude’s life. He might not have made it if we weren’t coming down the mountain right then.”
The next day, Douglas, who owns 7B Handyman and 7B Detail with his partner Nishelle Gonzales, had a feeling he should check on the man.
“I thought, ‘What if no one knows him?’ or, ‘What if he needs help?’ So I went down to the ER and right when I walked in the door I saw him standing there, crying,” Douglas told the Reader in a phone interview. “He didn’t even have any broken bones or anything. He was helping his girlfriend clean a house because her mom died. Well, I’m actually standing in the house right now, my partner and I are cleaning it right now for him.”
Douglas and Gonzalez even ended up giving the man a lift to the airport.
Looking back on the incident, Douglas said he believed there should be an app that connects people with EMS experience, in case there are incidents that the fire department or ambulances can’t respond to quickly.
“Sometimes people can’t get to you fast enough, so it would be nice to have some kind of app where people can help if they have EMS experience,” he said.
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