Emergency workers shut down a stretch of Interstate 40 in Putnam County while crews fought to save a woman trapped in her truck after slamming into a guardrail.
The crash happened Friday night, but on Monday, her husband and daughter met the people who saved Joyce Moyer's life.
"You make a difference in people’s lives every day," Allison Moyer told a handful of first responders at the Putnam County Emergency Services headquarters. "There’s no way we could tell you in words, tell you in gifts, there’s nothing we could do to express our gratitude."
Allison's step-mother fell asleep at the wheel Friday night while making a two hour drive to pick up her husband and grandchildren from a cabin. She veered off the interstate into a guardrail, flipping her truck onto it's top.
Luckily, emergency room doctor Mark Pressley happened to be on Interstate 40 at the time.
"He just happened to be there and helped her," Robert Moyer said. "He stopped, and with EMS, literally saved her life."
Dr. Pressley applied a tourniquet to Joyce's leg, which EMS staff said likely stopped her from bleeding out. But it took a small army to cut her out of the truck and load her into the helicopter that ultimately took her to Vanderbilt Medical Center. Doctors there amputated her leg below the knee.
Her family said Joyce is expected to be okay.
"It was a terrible thing, but there were a lot of blessings," Robert said. "If it weren’t for all the angels around, she would have never survived it."
To help Joyce in her "road to recovery" her family has set up agofundme page; so that anyone interested in donating can do so.
