An emergency room physician who attended Eastern Kentucky University paid the campus a visit on Tuesday and brought a gift.
Andrew Napier grew up in Pulaski County and joined the Army out of high school.
He deployed to Afghanistan, where he served as a combat medic and earned a Purple Heart.
He later started a company that makes medical devices. He spoke to a group of students at EKU’s campus who are training to be paramedics.
“It’s crazy to think that those, those children, those kids – I know they're adults now, they're 18, but they're going to be out and providing care,” he said. “These are going to be the differences of folks that go home to see their families and don't.”
Napier donated a supply of a tool he invented to EKU’s Emergency Medical Program. It’s called an IntuBlade and it helps paramedics open up patients’ airways to insert a breathing tube.
He said his combat experience informs what he does today.
“These are the guys that are taking gunshot wounds, right? So, those are my friends that are out in the rocks in Afghanistan that we're putting tourniquets on, that we're intervening on to save their life, right? That's not just a patient. That's not in a number. That's my friend, right?”
