Only On 9: Nurse And Murdered Man's Grandmother Bond Over Tragedy
NORWALK (CBSLA.com) — A local psychiatric nurse is being called a hero after she stumbled upon a shooting scene and helped the victim until paramedics arrived.
The nurse, Jen Woods, who moonlights as a Lyft driver, came upon the scene and found the victim.
Woods told KCAL9's Serene Branson she was just doing her job and doesn't feel she did anything heroic.
"That could have been my child and I would have wanted someone to stop for my child," said Woods.
After dropping off passengers at an Inglewood intersection last Thursday afternoon, Woods came upon the aftermath of a shooting.
"He was laying in the street -- as a mother who's a nurse I couldn't not stop to help Keshon. I had to try to revive him."
The victim was 17-year-old Keshon Fredericks. Branson reports he had been shot four times.
Woods worked on him, did compressions, tried to stop the bleeding for 20 minutes -- until paramedics arrives.
"When I got there I saw feet laying there police wouldn't let me through," said Brenda Tippins, the victim's grandmother.
Tippins raised her grandson.
Woods drove the victim's grandmother to UCLA Medical Center. But it was too late.
Woods and Tippins were bonded by tragedy. So much so, they spent part of Mother's Day together.
The nurse felt moved to start a GoFundMe site to help raise money to help the family pay funeral costs. [For more about the GoFundMe page, click here.] Other Lyft drivers have donated money to the cause. Woods also says she is organizing a car wash.
"I was actually raised by my grandparents," said Woods, "Seeing her wanting to get to her grandson, all I could do was offer her a ride. We instantly connected.
Tippins concurs, "She's been, well she was an angel sent."
Inglewood Police are still looking for the gunmen.
Tippins says her grandson was not in a gang but had trouble in the neighborhood because he was bi-racial.