A 2017 North Point High School graduate who spent three years in the Academy of Health Professions Science, Technology and Industry (STI) program, was put to the test recently when she responded to an accident scene, rendering aid to an injured driver.

Alexis Marshall was celebrating her birthday at the National Harbor in late May and as she and her mother were driving home, a car coming in the opposite direction flipped over.
“I have to get out,” Marshall told her mother, who was not happy about her 18-year-old’s insistence.

    When Marshall got to the scene, she and other Good Samaritans found the driver unresponsive in the car. Police officers arrived on the scene and pulled the driver from the car, but didn’t render first aid, telling Marshall the emergency medical technicians were on their way. Marshall and a nurse who had stopped were the only ones who moved to start CPR. “All these people were there,” Marshall said. “I thought someone else is CPR-certified.” But they weren’t. The nurse checked the driver’s pulse and couldn’t find one. “He wasn’t breathing,” Marshall said. “I started compressions. By the time EMS got there, the driver was breathing and he had a pulse.” Marshall said she didn’t really think about what she was doing; she just did it. “It was all instinct,” she said. “We just went in and knew what to do.”

      Marshall, who is going to New York University, wants to be a psychiatrist. Mental health is just as important as physical health, she said. “It’s underestimated how much people need mental health care,” said Marshall, who said she saw a therapist for depression in her early years of high school. “The help is really not there.”

She is excited to move to New York City, and she’ll keep her CPR certification current and up-to-date, while advocating for others to learn the lifesaving technique. “You can be the only person [in an emergency situation] who can save a life,” she said. For the past three years she’s been learning about health professions and found a field of study that she wants to pursue. “This is just the beginning,” Marshall said.