GRASS LAKE -- After her boyfriend slipped and fell while hiking a New Hampshire waterfall, Shelly Johnson restarted his breathing, bandaged his head with her swimsuit and carried him down a hill to safety.
Johnson, a senior nursing student at the University of Michigan, was headed to Maine last month for a vacation with her boyfriend of four years, 24-year-old Aaron Cole. The Grass Lake natives stopped in New Hampshire on Aug. 18 to hike "a beautiful waterfall," Cole recalled.
But while walking on slippery rocks in the water, Cole slipped and careened about 120 feet. Johnson gave him several "rescue breaths," bandaged his wounded head and then carried him down the hill.
"With head injuries, I knew it was important to keep him from going into a coma," she said.
Johnson, who weighs 115 pounds, says she drew special strength to carry the 160-pound Cole down the hill, which had taken them 45 minutes to climb.
"If all the money in the world was placed on it now," she said, "I don't think I could do it again. It was adrenaline and God."
Cole was airlifted to Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center in Lebanon, N.H., where he spent two days in intensive care. He has no permanent brain damage from the incident.
"Shelly is a true hero and deserves all the credit in the world for saving my life," Cole said.
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