As 17 -year-old Torri'ell Norwood drove through St. Petersburg, Florida, last February, the laughter and chatter from the teenage girls inside her car quickly gave way to screams. As they came near to a crossing, another car T-boned them, sending their black car sailing into the yard of a nearby home, coming to a stop only when it crashed into a tree.
As smoke rose from the other car, a bystander shouted, "It's about to blow up! Get out!" The impact had caved in Norwood's driver's side door, jamming it shut. Shaken, but otherwise OK, she crawled out through the window. Along with two of her friends, who'd also managed to free themselves, she ran for her life.
But halfway down the street, she realized that her best friend, A'zarria Simmons, wasn't with them. Norwood ran back to the badly-damaged car and found Simmons fall down in the back seat. "She wasn't moving, " Norwood told Inside Edition. She threw open the back door and pulled her friend out, avoiding the broken glass as best she could. She dragged Simmons a few feet to safety and laid her on the ground. "I checked her pulse. "Nothing. "I put my head against her chest." No sign of life. "That's when I started CPR."
Had the accident happened a few weeks earlier, she might not have known what to do. But Norwood, who wants to pursue a career in medicine, had earned her CPR certificate just the day before. Kneeling on the lawn and looking down at her dying friend, Norwood knew she had precious little time to practice what she'd learned.
She started pumping Simmons's chest with her interlocked fingers and breathing into her friend's mouth in hopes of filling her lungs with the kiss of life. No response. And then, after the 30th compression (加压), Simmons began coughing and gasping for air. The CPR had worked!
Soon, the ambulance arrived and rushed Simmons to the hospital, where she received stitches (缝合) in her forehead. And then she heard how her best friend had saved her life. "I wasn't shocked, " Simmons told CNN. "She will always help any way she can. "
