MIAMI (WSVN) - A high school student received a special salute from a police department after he came to the rescue of a Miami-Dade County employee.
City of Miami Police honored Christian Roldan, a junior at Booker T. Washington Senior High School, with its Do the Right Thing Award for his heroic actions on February.
A speaker at the ceremony cited the 11th-grader’s impressive credentials. “Christian is a straight ‘A’ student in the demanding engineering magnet program … He is also the president of the Math Society, vice president of the 5000 Role Models of Excellence Club, captain of the volleyball team,” she said.
Roldan, who hopes to become a doctor someday, showed he already has the ability to handle a major medical crisis.
He was headed home after tutoring classmates when he happened upon an accident along Southwest 127th Avenue and 104th Street in Southwest Miami-Dade.
“I saw a man on the floor, and I kept driving maybe 20 feet, and I saw the man’s leg completely severed from his body from about the knee down,” said Roldan.
That man was Miami-Dade Water and Sewer employee Ariel Mino.
Fearing the worst, the teen sprang into action before first responders arrived.
“I ran up to him and took off my belt, and I wrapped it high on his leg and pulled as tight as I could to stop the bleeding,” said Roldan.
The student’s quick thinking and makeshift tourniquet saved Mino’s life. However, the teen is a reluctant hero, simply saying he was in the right place at the right time.
“I was there on purpose,” he said. “In that time, I was the person that needed to help the victim.”
Roldan’s heroism was also celebrated last month by the Miami-Dade County Commission.
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