SCHOFIELD BARRACKS — Shannon Kail was driving through Waikele at noon last Sunday on her way to Mililani when she heard the sound of a pickup truck striking a rock wall.

Kail stopped her car, ran to the crash site on Lumi'aina Street, pulled the unconscious 47-year-old Waialua woman driver out of the truck with the help of unknown man, and laid her on the ground.

"I knew for sure she was in shock, because her face was purple and her eyes were in back of her head, so I told the guy helping not to move her," Kail said.

Relying on basic Army training skills, Kail checked for responsiveness and found the woman had no pulse and was not breathing. Kail told the man to hold the victim's nose and breathe into her mouth while Kail began chest compressions. Moments later, a certified nurse, who was also a passerby, took over.

Ambulance and police arrived, but the attention given to the woman in the first five to seven minutes were critical.

Kail, a 21-year-old sergeant from Gardner, Kan., assigned to the 406 Military Intelligence Co., stayed with the woman until the ambulance took her to St. Francis Medical Center-West. Kail went on to meet her friends at Mililani Stadium 14, saw the movie "King Kong" and then went back to check on the woman at the hospital.

"She was asleep, but nobody had come for her; I was the first person," Kail said. "But they told me she would be OK."

The woman's boyfriend called Kail the next day. "He told me she was awake, and I talked to her on the phone," Kail said. "She thanked me."

It was enough for Kail, but the soldier later visited the couple at the hospital.

"What I'm proud about," Kail said, "is I know how to do stuff now I wouldn't have been able to do three years ago.

"Before I was in the military, I was a troublesome, selfish brat. My parents let me do whatever I wanted. I knew I didn't want to live in Kansas anymore and I didn't want to go to college. But I did want to better myself because I knew I wasn't that good a person."

Kail believes if the incident had happened before she joined the military, she would have stopped, but "I wouldn't have known what to do.

"In the military, you learn to care about other people. Selfless service is an Army value. It means to put others ahead of yourself."

Staff Sgt. Corinne Crabtree, 25, who serves in the same platoon as Kail, also has been a Good Samaritan.

While driving to work on Kunia Road at 3 a.m. on Oct. 21, Crabtree passed a green car that had flipped over.

On a dark roadway at that time of the morning, Crabtree wasn't sure about what she saw. But she decided to turn back and check.

"The car had flipped on its side and the driver's-side door was on the ground," said Crabtree, who is due to give birth to her first child in May. "Someone was lying on the ground, reaching toward the windshield. I thought it was a child."

The injured person was a petite woman, 24. "Some of her teeth had been knocked out and she was bleeding from the mouth and under her eyes," Crabtree said.

The soldier called for an ambulance and tried to attend to the woman's injuries. "But she was walking around," Crabtree said.

A motorist, who might not have seen a dazed woman wandering around a crash scene on a dark roadway had Crabtree not been there, stopped to assist. According to Emergency Medical Services records, the woman refused treatment at the scene.

While at the Kunia Road accident scene, Crabtree waved off her friend, Kail, who was passing by on her way to work and would have stopped to help if needed.

Crisis situations are nothing new for the two sergeants.

As a young girl, Kail rescued her 7-year-old sister, Becky Kaufman, from a pool and helped her choking mother cough up a piece of meat by punching her in the stomach. Crabtree was 11 years old when she pulled her 4-year-old brother from the bottom of a pool.

Both soldiers see themselves as Good Samaritans, not heroes.

"If I were in that situation," Kail said of accidents, "I hope someone would stop to help me."

Capt. Kelly Gleason, who commands the company Kail and Crabtree are in, praised the two soldiers.

"I'm extremely proud of the soldiers because they both saw a situation and didn't think of themselves," Gleason said.

Reach Rod Ohira at rohira@honoluluadvertiser.com.