On Sunday morning, Jeanna Sanderson-Easterling and Amanda Irons were strangers.
Twenty-four hours later they are family, brought together by Irons’ 15-year-old son and fate — or God — who decided on a beautiful fall day that it wasn’t the boy’s time.
“I think God is real and if God had wanted to take my son he would have done it yesterday,” Irons said.
Instead, Sanderson-Easterling — who just a year ago decided to go back to school to become a certified nurse assistant — arrived home shortly before noon, got out of her car and noticed a crowd of teenage boys in Peter Pan Park.
She frequently glimpses the goings-on in the skate park directly across from her small, white house. Sunday, she noticed something wasn’t right.
Four or five boys stood around another boy on the ground, who struggled to get up, then fell to the ground again.
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She didn’t think twice.
“I didn’t question myself, I didn’t hesitate. I went for it. I went over there.”
That CNA training she’d received had included first aid and CPR training, but she’d never had an opportunity to use it. Until Sunday.
The boy, she’d learn later, had been riding a bike up and down the ramps when he lost control and fell, the bike handlebars gouging the inside of his right leg.
Blood soaked his wind pants and ran onto the sidewalk, his lips had turned a light blue and Sanderson-Easterling knew the wound was close to the femoral artery.
She told the boys she was a certified nurse assistant and was there to help. She said a prayer out loud and asked the wounded boy his name, his age.
Julian Estrada, he said. Fifteen years old.
It didn’t matter that the young man was a stranger, that she had no gloves as protection against the blood. Sanderson-Easterling got onto her knees, bent over him and put pressure on the wound, and kept him talking while he began to fade in and out of consciousness.
“I just kept on reassuring him that everything would be fine, help was on the way,” she said.
She could hear the sirens, though Julian’s friends who had called 911 would later say it seemed to take forever.
But the fire trucks and the paramedics arrived, told Sanderson-Easterling to keep pressure on the wound while they applied a tourniquet, then got Julian on the stretcher.
The boy looked at her then, told her he was having trouble breathing. That scared her the most, she said.
* * *
Irons’ cellphone rang at 1:01 p.m., the mom of one of her son’s friends. Julian, who’d spent the night at a friend’s house, had been in a bike accident and was on his way to the hospital. Irons hung up and the phone rang again. A Lincoln Police officer told her to go to the hospital, that her son was injured, that it was serious.
A chaplain met her at the hospital, told her that doctors were taking her son to surgery. She heard the doctor’s words nearby.
Apply pressure. Apply pressure. We’ve got to get him to the OR now.
The next hours were a blur.
* * *
Sanderson-Easterling went back to her house after the ambulance left. She changed her blood-soaked clothes and left for the hospital.
“I had to,” she said. “I knew I had to come here. I couldn’t go to bed not knowing if he was going to make it or not.”
At the emergency room, she learned his family was with the chaplain.
“Right then and there my heart broke,” she said. “I assumed the worst.”
But a police officer who’d been at the park saw her and told Julian’s family. One of Julian’s brothers came out to get her.
They waited together until Julian, a sophomore at Northeast High School with his twin brother, came out of surgery.
The handlebars had hit a vein but had narrowly missed the femoral artery, Irons said. Doctors used a portion of another vein to repair the broken one. They’d given him 20 units of blood. He had a breathing tube and was in a medically induced coma. But he was expected to live.
Sanderson-Easterling stayed. She watched Julian while his mom slept. About 3:30 a.m., he started to wake up.
He motioned for his phone, got on Snapchat and texted a message, motioning Sanderson-Easterling to his bedside.
“He texted me, ‘Thank you for saving my life,’” she said. Then he asked for a hug.
* * *
Doctors told Irons that people don't usually survive such injuries, that the actions of the stranger had likely saved Julian's life.
As Monday wore on, doctors removed the breathing tube. The teenager began talking. He was able to get out of bed and walk. He wanted a Sprite. A steady stream of friends came by.
“Today, he’s just like my old son,” Irons said.
With one difference.
“Julian has a guardian angel," Irons said. "And her name is Jeanna.”