Camas girl, 8, praised for helping to save two lives

An observant girl’s quick action may have saved two lives in the span of three days.

Shelbie McQueen, a third-grader at Woodburn Elementary School in Camas, was walking from a bus stop to her house Sept. 9 when she heard somebody crying out for help.

She traced the cries to one of her neighbors, Roger Rosenberry, who was lying in a thick area of grass and rocks near his home. Eight-year-old Shelbie immediately raced home and informed her mother about what she saw and heard.

“She came into the house and said, ‘Mom, I’m pretty scared,’” Tiesha McQueen said. “I said, ‘What’s going on? Why are you scared?’ She said, ‘I think I hear somebody outside that is yelling for help.’”

McQueen opened her front door and heard Rosenberry’s voice. He had fallen nearly 20 feet from a ladder in his backyard.

“Shelbie immediately took off like a bullet,” McQueen said. “She went over there and told him, ‘Don’t worry, my mom’s going to come and help you. We’re going to call 911.’ She reassured him that somebody heard him and is going to make sure that he’s taken care of.”

Shelbie then found Rosenberry’s daughter, who was inside the house at the time of her father’s fall but didn’t hear his pleas for assistance.

Rosenberry was taken to a nearby hospital, where he was diagnosed with a fractured pelvis. He has since made a full recovery, McQueen said.

“Had Shelbie not heard him when she did, he would have gone into shock,” McQueen said.

Three days later, Shelbie was riding her bike in her neighborhood when she noticed an elderly man sitting on his lawn.

“She said he looked like he was sick, and when she tried to talk to him, he wasn’t talking to her back,” McQueen said. “She had seen him mowing his lawn earlier, but he had stopped and was sitting down and wasn’t talking. She felt like something was wrong.”

Shelbie raced over to the house of a nearby neighbor, who called 911 after Shelbie informed her about the situation. The man was taken to a local hospital, where doctors determined that he had experienced a stroke.

The man has since made a full recovery and relocated to Arizona, where he lives during the winter months.

“It was one of those shock-and-awe moments,” McQueen said. “For her to recognize that something was wrong with this older man, that he needed help, and say, ‘I don’t care if I’m scared, I just need to take off and do it’ — that was amazing.”

The Oregon Army National Guard recognized Shelbie in a Dec. 3 ceremony at Woodburn Elementary. She received three awards for her potentially life-saving actions. Both of the men who Shelbie helped save are U.S. military veterans.

“(Shelbie’s) extraordinary actions exemplify bravery and selflessness beyond her years,” Oregon Army National Guard 1st Sgt. Amber Erwin said during the ceremony. “She has shown that no act is too small when it comes to helping others, and her actions have made a lasting impact.”

The ceremony was attended by Camas-Washougal Fire Department emergency medical technicians, Camas Police Department officers, Woodburn Elementary third-grade students and Camas Mayor Steve Hogan, whom Shelbie was especially excited to meet, according to her mother.

“Never believe that you are too small or too young to say something when you see something,” Camas-Washougal Fire Department Chief Cliff Free said during the ceremony. “That’s what Shelbie did, and we would all like to thank her for that.”

Shelbie has handled all of the attention with grace and humility, according to her mother.

“When we told her about the ceremony, she was really surprised, honestly,” McQueen said. “She’s really surprised that anybody would want to give her an award for something like this because she’s like, ‘Anybody would do this. Why wouldn’t anybody do this?’”