A South Florida doctor says he was at the right place at the right time when he stepped in to help a man bleeding out on the side of the highway over the weekend.
Dr. Miguel Ribe, an emergency medicine resident at Jackson Memorial, said he was driving with his fiance Saturday night when they noticed the man on Interstate 95 in Miami-Dade.
"It was kind of just instinct to pull over," Ribe told reporters Tuesday in front of Ryder Trauma Center. "There was no one there to give him attention."
The ER doctor said his training immediately kicked in.
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"It kind of just centers you back to everything that we learn back here, and really your mind kind of goes on autopilot," he said.
The first thing Ribe noticed was that the man's breathing was very labored.
"He was kind of choking, and I didn't know if it was blood or what it was, but just kind of hold jaw thrusts and take that pressure off the airway, so that was the first thing that I did," he said.
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Ribe kept talking to the man and keeping him alert until paramedics showed up.
"I just kept encouraging him to keep fighting, keep fighting, keep pulling me, keep grabbing me — keep him engaged until fire rescue got there," he said.
Ribe says the man had been cleaning a bus and fell through the doors as it was moving, hitting his head on the pavement.
Miami-Dade Police confirmed paramedics responded after 11 p.m. on Saturday to the on-ramp of I-95 near SE 2nd Avenue, where they found the man who had fallen out of the bus. He was transported to Ryder Trauma with a head injury in serious but stable condition.
Jackson Memorial couldn't provide an update on the man's condition as of Tuesday.
While Dr. Ribe doesn’t know how the man is doing now, he wrote on Instagram, “I truly hope we were able to get time him in time."
"I was fortunate enough to be there myself and my fiance, I mean she's the one that noticed it -- I think it was kind of right place, right time, kind of meant-to-be-there kind of situation," he said.
