When screams pierced the hum of downtown Washington, D.C., a doctor on her way to work Wednesday afternoon jumped into action
"There's someone under the bus," Dr. Coleen Kivlahan heard as she walked near 7th Street and Massachusetts Avenue NW.
"So, I dove under the bus," she said with a shrug.
Moments earlier, a Greyhound bus had struck a man in his 70s, trapping him beneath the rear wheel system. The woman who a witness called a "secret hero" said she knew what to do right away.
"I had a backpack on, and I threw the backpack off and I slid under the bus," she said. "It was very clear that his left leg was pinned."
Kivlahan, who lives in Arlington and works nearby at the Association of American Medical Colleges, stayed with the victim until first-responders got to the scene.
The experienced doctor conducts evaluations of rape and torture around the world and said she was amazed by the EMS crew that arrived to help the crash victim, who was in serious but stable condition as of Wednesday evening.
"I think they were spectacular human beings," she said. "This is what they do every day. I don't think the story is about me. It's about them."
