An injured U.S. soldier’s damaged sedan sits inside Kadena Air Base, Okinawa, Monday, Aug. 5, 2024. (Brian McElhiney/Stars and Stripes)
KADENA AIR BASE, Okinawa — A Marine jumped to aid a fellow service member injured in a single-car crash while attempting to leave the home of the Air Force’s 18th Wing this week.
The accident happened at 9:50 a.m. Monday, wing spokesman 1st Lt. Robert Dabbs said by email Wednesday.
“We can confirm a U.S. Army Soldier was involved in an on base vehicle accident …” he wrote.
Dabbs declined Wednesday to provide further information or state how badly the soldier was injured. An investigation is underway to determine the cause of the accident, he said.
The damaged black sedan — its hood up, windshield cracked and front bumper in pieces — was still in place Monday about 330 yards from Gate 3 near trees and over a ditch off Douglas Avenue.
Paramedics and first responders work the scene of a single-car accident near Gate 3 inside Kadena Air Base, Okinawa, Aug. 5, 2024. (JR Scott Sigrah)
Marine Gunnery Sgt. JR Scott Sigrah, of 3rd Marine Logistics Group, saw the outbound vehicle miss a curve, continue into the inbound lane, exit the roadway, flip and land in the tree line.
Sigrah, who spoke to Stars and Stripes about the accident by phone and email Wednesday, was entering Gate 3 with his son around 9:40 a.m.
“In the back of my mind, I wanted to believe it was an umbrella or tarp that flew off someone’s vehicle,” he said. “As we got closer, I looked to my left and sure thing, it was a car that was still rolling forward.”
He said he used a hammer provided by another good Samaritan to break a window and remove the unconscious driver’s foot from the accelerator; Sigrah cut his hand in the process.
“I was able to get the guy to wake up,” he wrote in a post on his Facebook page. “Face bleeding, he woke up and said he is ok. I told him no you are not and to sit and stay still until paramedics arrived.”
Paramedics soon arrived and stabilized the injured driver.
Sigrah said he saw the injured soldier and the paramedics again at the emergency room, where the paramedics thanked him.
“That dude could have died,” he told Stars and Stripes. “That service member could have died; he really could have died. That’s crazy.”
