Chuck Fongsamouth, World Geography teacher and assistant football and assistant track coach, isn’t just a teacher and coach. He’s a veteran and hero. Fongsamouth and his wife witnessed at a rollover crash at the intersection of I-35 and Golden Triangle Boulevard.
“My wife and I were headed to lunch and we had just dropped off our puppy to his grandparents. And what happened was as we were coming down Golden Triangle headed toward Keller. Not the car in front of us but the car in front of the vehicle in front of us. It turns out that they have ran the red light that was in front of us. And another car hit them because they ran the red light. That car flipped and rolled, twice, before it came to a stop and on the second roll, I saw a person get ejected out of the vehicle,” Fongsamouth commented.
Being a retired veteran, Fongsamouth has basic medical training and is also cardiopulmonary resuscitation, CPR, certified. His wife is a registered nurse, Timber Creek’s first, and certified teacher. Fongsamouth and his wife, due to close proximity and medical backgrounds, were the first responders to the scene.
“I checked to make sure it was safe. We immediately pulled right up to the accident and that’s when we saw that it was a full SUV, full of an entire family, and it was just screaming. They were yelling in pain. The vehicle was completely demolished. The young man that was on the ground was literally a couple of feet from being crushed by the vehicle when it righted itself. So my wife immediately to give him assistance and I went around checked the vehicle and opened the vehicle and checked on the status of everybody else,” Fongsamouth explained.
Fongsamouth called 911 while his wife was giving direct care to the boy that got ejected from the vehicle.
“He was just a complete mess, to describe it. Just filled with blood, covered in blood. My wife was getting all the blood on her as well. The vehicle was filled with about six people. I went around to the vehicle and found an elderly woman who was flipped upside down and has her feet actually through the windshield. And that’s when I also noticed that she might have had a spinal cord injury after I asked her some questions and such and so forth,” Fongsamouth stated.
Within five minutes of calling, the emergency services arrived. And within 30 minutes, the wreck was cleared and the scene was empty. Fongsamouth and his wife were worried about the family and how they were doing after the crash.
“The following day, my wife did find out that he was taken to a certain hospital. We were lucky that to get his last name from his sister before we left the scene and once we found out his name, just by happenstance on the internet. We found out he was a student possibly at a Saginaw middle school and I proceeded to try to find any information. We found out that a name, similar to his name, was a cross-country runner. There were no pictures of him or anything like that, but I called the cross-country and soccer coach there and found out that he was one of their athletes, 13-year-old boy and that he was in the hospital.15 minutes later, his ESL and English teacher called me back with permission from his mom, the lady that was taking care of him was actually his adoptive mom and the family was fine. He just had a major scrape on his head and he took the brunt of it luckily of being ejected on his shoulder and his back and that’s what saved him and my wife intervening and our participation in that event,” Fongsamouth added.
Highland Middle School held a bake sale on Nov. 12, 2016 to raise money for his family and to cover the medical costs.
“Two weeks after the accident, it was a joy for us, my wife and I. We were able to go see the bake sale and visit his family at their house. We were able to see him and his sisters. And they are all doing fine,” said Fongsamouth,”It was an incredible event and the craziest thing is I never go that way, down that street, and for whatever reason, my wife and I made that turn and were a part of that whole incident and I think it is a blessing for us that we were there to help that family so that was pretty neat.”