By Katherine Hafner
The Virginian-Pilot
NORFOLK, Va. — It was when the blood on the ground spread to his knees that Aaron Davis-Quinn realized he needed to do something.
Minutes before, he’d seen a black pickup swerve across Interstate 264 and roll twice, ejecting its passenger more than 20 feet into the air.
Davis-Quinn, who lives in Suffolk, was driving the car behind the pickup in the far left lane, headed eastbound with a coworker to a job site, when the pickup made a hard right and plowed across the interstate. The driver and passenger had been arguing. It was mid-afternoon on Friday, March 24, passing Harbor Park and Tidewater Drive.
After running his vehicle up against the interstate’s Jersey wall, Davis-Quinn got out and tried to help two men injured in the pickup, running between the driver still in his seat and a man lying on the ground. They were brothers from Virginia Beach, 40-year-old Eric Addison and 36-year-old Shawn Addison.
Davis-Quinn didn’t want to move Eric, the driver – who, he said, was “dripping blood, hanging by his seat belt” – in case that made things worse, so he went back to Shawn, who was unresponsive on the ground.
He knelt on the right side of Shawn, who had lost his right arm and whose head “looked like spaghetti sauce.”
“I looked down and noticed my knees were getting wet. That’s when I decided I had to do something to stop the blood.”
He took off his belt and used it as a makeshift tourniquet on Shawn’s arm.
“I didn’t do anything special,” Davis-Quinn said. “I just did what came to mind, and it happened to help.”
Terence “TJ” Parsons, a Navy corpsman, was on his way back to his duty station at Little Creek Naval Amphibious Base when he was caught in a traffic standstill caused by the crash – the incident caused miles-long backups right before rush hour.
Though he was six or seven cars back, Parsons saw people get out of their cars and run toward the site, so he did the same.
“I saw a guy on the ground with an arm missing and there was somebody attending to him,” Parsons said. He said if not for Davis-Quinn’s temporary tourniquet, Shawn could have bled to death.
Parsons said he was blown away by Davis-Quinn’s ability to demonstrate such accurate knowledge in such a terrible situation.
“It’s the kind of thing we teach,” he said.
While Davis-Quinn works at a property preservation company, he said many of his family members are in the medical field. He must’ve picked up a few things over the years, he said.
As the paramedics arrived and took the brothers to Sentara Norfolk General Hospital, dozens of people lined up on the interstate and clapped for the good Samaritans.
Davis-Quinn “was the first responder and he’s the hero in all this,” Parsons said.
But Davis-Quinn said he just tried to do the little he could to help.
“I’m not a hero,” he said. “I’m just someone covered in someone else’s blood.”
Virginia State Police spokeswoman Sgt. Michelle Anaya said Eric Addison has been issued a reckless driving summons. Alcohol was not a factor in the crash, Anaya said.
The Addison brothers are both alive – Shawn was not wearing a seat belt and was hit the hardest. Shawn is awaiting hip surgery, but their sister Lauri Addison Boatright said he is now awake and can mumble, though he can’t fully form words.
Boatright said she’s amazed how Davis-Quinn, Parsons and others were able to come together quickly to save her brother’s life. For Shawn to have no brain damage after such a fall is “miraculous.”
“It’s like God had orchestrated one moment in time,” she said. God “just wrapped his arm around the whole scene.”
Shawn and Eric Addison had been arrested less than two weeks before in connection with a possible meth lab. Shawn was charged with possession of a controlled substance; two counts of manufacture, sale, or possession of a controlled substance and conspiracy to violate drug control act. Eric was charged with possession of a controlled substance.
Boatright said she believes the accident may be a sign from above, giving her brothers a chance to better their lives.
“If anything, (Shawn) was given a second chance of life no matter what the past was,” she said. “Sometimes God gets our attention to say ‘Hi, maybe our life’s got to change.’ … It’s miraculous that he’s even laying on his head.”
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