By Leah Thorsen
St. Louis Post-Dispatch (Missouri)
Copyright 2006 St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Inc.
EDWARDSVILLE, Mo. — When the power went out in Brian Ludwig’s neighborhood a few months ago, he went outside to see what was going on.
Brian, then 14, ended up helping a doctor give CPR to a teenage girl who had been shocked by downed electrical wires in a car crash.
Tonight, Brian, now 15, will receive the Award of Heroism from the Sons of the American Revolution’s Edwardsville chapter for his actions.
The girl he helped save, 16-year-old Molly Carver, remains in a rehabilitation unit and is getting better all the time, her mother said.
It was about 8:30 p.m. on March 3 when Brian walked down Terrace Cove Court and saw headlights in a nearby backyard.
He saw a car crashed into a utility pole with downed electrical wires over it.
Molly lay motionless on the ground. Dr. Keith Byler, in whose yard the car landed, was giving CPR to the girl.
She wasn’t breathing and she didn’t have a pulse, Byler said.
When the doctor yelled for anyone who knew CPR to help, Brian ran over.
Byler performed chest compressions while Brian gave mouth-to-mouth for roughly five minutes until paramedics arrived.
Brian learned CPR a year earlier at the Edwardsville police department’s youth academy, he said.
Byler heralded Brian’s effort, and the help of Stuart Marshall, a passenger in the car.
“If no one had been around who knew CPR, Molly would have died,” Byler said. “There’s no question about that.”
Molly was one of four teens in a car that crashed in the 1700 block of Yellow Hammer Crossing, according to an Edwardsville police report.
The driver of the car has not been charged, although the case is under review. No one else was injured in the crash.