DANBURY, CONN. — While driving down a darkened highway the eve before Thanksgiving, Kassandra Brady saw a twist of red lights ahead and knew that someone needed her help.

As the WCSU senior nursing student got closer to the lights, she realized that a pickup truck had spun out of control and landed on its side — and the driver required medical care.

Grabbing her first aid kit, Brady assessed the driver’s basic needs and confirmed that he was able to climb out of the vehicle with her assistance. After calling 911, Brady asked his age, his allergies and how he felt, all important information in case he passed out before an ambulance arrived.

After attending first to a gash above the eye, Brady tended to his bloody hands covered with shards of glass. Her white coat smattered in blood, Brady had nearly all of his wounds tended to before emergency personnel arrived. When the EMTs asked Brady if she was a nurse, she told them she was a senior nursing student at Western.

“Then they just stood back and let me finish,” said the New Milford resident.

Since starting nursing school at WCSU, Brady said she is always prepared with an emergency kit packed with gauze, splinting material, gloves, towels and a mask.

“If I was a sophomore, I wouldn’t be that big of a help. Now that I’m a senior and have been through all of these classes and dealt with a lot of patients, I realized that I know a lot more than I thought,” she said. “You have to think quickly and recall things.”

Brady said a medical/surgical course last year in which she learned assessment skills and how to deal with trauma victims helped her in tending to the driver’s injuries. She also said that the WCSU nursing program participated in a clinical session in the Intensive Care Unit at Waterbury Hospital. There she saw trauma patients — victims of car accidents and spinal injuries, those who needed to immobilized, and others with head injuries and broken limbs.

Brady, a Certified Nurse’s Aide prior to nursing school, said there was never a doubt that she would get her nursing degree at Western.

“A lot of nurses that I knew at the hospital and area nursing homes went to Western and talked about how good the nursing program is,” she said. “I’ve always heard it has a 100 percent pass rate on the state licensing exam and that it’s the best because it has the medical/surgical course and ‘Community Health Nursing.’ Area hospitals like Western because of those experiences it gives.”

Western Connecticut State University offers outstanding faculty in a range of quality academic programs. Our diverse university community provides students an enriching and supportive environment that takes advantage of the unique cultural offerings of Western Connecticut and New York. Our vision: To be an affordable public university with the characteristics of New England’s best small private universities.