Debra Watkins

Heading to work, Debra Watkins, RN, an ICU nurse manager at Veterans Administration Medical Center in Dayton, Ohio, arrived at the scene of a head-on collision. She coordinated the evacuation of the less injured accident victims, and she and a nursing student extracted a lifeless woman and her husband from a vehicle just before it exploded. Debra feared the worst but promised herself to do everything she could to save the woman’s life. Despite the odds, she revived the woman through continuous CPR, and the woman was airlifted to a nearby hospital. The woman and her husband recovered from the accident.