GILBERT, Ariz. — For 17 years, Josh Milne has made it his mission to save lives.
“Helping people is my favorite part of the job,” he said.
As a firefighter and paramedic for Gilbert Fire and Rescue, he’s had plenty of opportunities to do so.
On Tuesday afternoon, he got to do it again by being in the right place at the right time.
Milne had just finished a day of live training at the Gilbert Public Safety Training Facility. He was headed home for a wedding anniversary dinner.
After pulling out of the facility’s parking lot onto Power Road in Gilbert, he would have a date with destiny.
“I was alerted by a passerby with his horn that something was going on,” he said.
Not aware of what was going on, or why another driver was blaring his horn, Milne would soon understand why.
“I could see a woman having a medical emergency. She was unconscious. She was driving her vehicle, weaving in and out of traffic and she was out of control,” Milne said.
He quickly made a split-second decision that would save the life of the woman and other drivers near Pecos and Power roads. Milne used his Gilbert Fire duty truck to position himself so the woman's car would hit his truck.
“Had I not, she was possibly going to go off the road, hit another car, another person, or worse," he said. "There’s an embankment and railroad tracks that she could have gone over.”
Milne was not hurt.
The driver who blared his horn for attention called 911.
Milne’s colleagues, who were just yards away at the same training facility he had just left, rushed to the scene to treat the woman. She was transported to the hospital where she is recovering.
By simply being at the right place at the right time, Milne said helping the woman wouldn’t have been possible without the help of the real hero: The honking driver.
“Without him notifying us what was going on.. with the use of his horn. I might have not known what was going on," he said. "He was able to call 911 and use his horn to alert other drivers."
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