KEY WEST, Fla. – An officer’s body-worn camera captured a rescue in progress in Key West, following a traffic crash last month.
A Key West Police officer and good Samaritans could be seen on North Roosevelt Boulevard, surrounding a man who had been thrown off his scooter after crashing into a car.
One of the people performing CPR was U.S. Border Patrol Agent Robert Breitman, who saw the crash on his way home from a meeting.
“I actually think I said those words out loud: ‘This isn’t good,’” Breitman recalled. “Didn’t have a pulse, didn’t have any respirations.”
Moments later, the man takes a breath.
“I think your training kicks in. I think as a first responder, that’s what we’re trained to do,” Breitman said.
Key West police chief Sean Brandenburg said the department’s dedicated motor officers focus on traffic, where the island can see a big influx depending on the time of year, or even the weekend.
“This is something in Key West we’re very familiar with,” Brandenburg said. “The island gets very congested very quickly.”
Numbers provided by the city show crashes involving scooters and motorcycles with serious injuries have been on a downward trend in Key West since 2015. A dip in 2020 was likely due to smaller numbers of people in town during the pandemic.
The chief credits stepped-up enforcement and state grants that fund scooter safety education for the improvements.
“Our response times are amazingly fast here, I’m very proud of that,” he said.
In the case of the crash in March, the scooter operator was taken to Jackson South Hospital where he remains in critical condition.
The crash is under investigation.
“In this case you had a group of first responders that utilized their training and their experience,” Breitman said.
“I’m hoping he has a full recovery and is able to get back to his regular life as quickly as possible, Brandenburg said.