Courtesy of Marine Corps Times
For Marines, being off duty doesn’t mean taking days off.
Cpls. Otto Thiele, Christopher Ehms and Eric Goodman and Lance Cpls. Antonio Martinez and Avelardo Guevara Osuna were spending the Fourth of July weekend hiking Mount Fuji in Japan when they were flagged to a local man, clearly in distress. The man’s daughter was shaking and feverish, and needed help, according a Marine Corps release.
Instinctively, the five Marines crafted a stretcher out of their shirts and hiking sticks.
“For us, it was second nature,” said Ehms. “Immediately we [thought], ‘She needs to get down; let’s get her down.’ We were so calm during the situation.”
They carried her nearly two miles down the mountain until they met up with medical personnel. The woman fell unconscious and her body went limp during the descent, according to the release.
After they left her with medical personnel, none of the Marines knew how she would fare. A few days later, though, Goodwin says he received a Facebook message from another assisting bystander saying that the woman had completely recovered.
“We were all really worried about her,” Thiele said in the release. “It was pretty touching to get that message.”
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Photo courtesy of Lance Cpl. Andrew Neumann/ Marines
