KNOXVILLE, Tenn. (WATE) A Knoxville woman was awarded the Key to the City in Sedalia, Missouri, after saving the life of a car crash victim.
Jada McMillan, originally from Knoxville and an alumna of Hardin Valley Academy, took an important career step in 2021 by enlisting in the U.S. Air Force. She serves as an aerospace medical technician at Whiteman Air Force Base located in Knob Noster, Missouri.
She was driving home from work on July 9 when she witnessed a crash.
Recalling a recent incident, McMillan said, “There was a car in front of me; I looked down to change the music, glanced up, and saw the vehicle ahead swerving into the opposite lane, dipping into a ditch, momentarily airborne, and then crashing nose-first into another ditch.”
The car was being driven by a 23-year-old nurse named ShiAnn.
Upon witnessing the event, a woman exited the car in front of McMillan, whom she identified as Darci Curtis, a fellow airbase employee. Recognizing the urgency, both women sprang into action.
McMillan is EMT certified. Initially, she did not want to move ShiAnn out of the car and risk making her injuries worse. But then things changed.
“As smoke billowed from under the hood, I knew this wasn’t good. Darci and I immediately realized we had to get the driver out. Darci held the airbags aside while I helped pull her from the car,” McMillan recounted.
At the same time, ShiAnn’s mother, Melissa Johnson, was hurrying to the crash scene. ShiAnn’s phone had automatically sent an alert to Johnson’s phone, complete with the crash location.
She was about 10 minutes down the road when she got a phone call.
“I saw an unknown number show up labeled Knoxville, Tennessee. Initially, I thought of ignoring it, given my focus elsewhere, but something prompted me to check, thinking it might relate to the accident,” she explained.
“When I answered it the first thing I heard was ShiAnn going, ‘mama,’ and then Jada came on the line and said she’s okay.”
ShiAnn is still recovering. Her mom said she broke two vertebrae in her back, had spinal cord swelling, bone edema around the area, and ruptured three disks.
A few months later, McMillan got a call from the Mayor of Sedalia. At first, she thought it was a prank.
“All I hear is, ‘Hi Jada, blah blah blah I’m the mayor,’ and I’m like, ‘girl, come on, stop playing in my face,” she explained. “And he’s like, ‘yeah, I want to present you with a key to the city.’ I didn’t even know that was a real thing; I thought that was something that really only happened on TV for superheroes.”
Jada received the award last week and was able to meet ShiAnn’s family.
“Once the introductions had been made and we, for a lack of better terms, knew each other at that point, it felt like family,” Johnson said. “And it was an honor to be able to say these are the people that gave me my kid back.”
“Honestly, I thought that was better than even getting the award,” McMillan said. “Just getting that closure and getting to meet them, and I know that they were so grateful for everything that happened and them expressing that, and they gave us flowers, that was just a really special moment.”
Darci Curtis, the other woman who pulled ShiAnn out of the car, was also given a Key to the City. She works in pharmacy on the airbase, in the same building as McMillan.
