A woman from St. Charles County was the center for a friend’s birthday. When they stopped at a red light, she heard the cries of a desperate father

On November 28, 2024By Littum

ST. LOUIS, Mo. (First Alert 4) – A woman in St. Charles County in the right place at the right time is being credited with stepping in and helping an Illinois teenager shot on Interstate 55 Saturday night.

Lily Paniucki was downtown for a friend’s 21st birthday party, where the group had hired a party bus to take the girls around to various downtown bars. Paniucki, just 20, stayed on the bus with another friend while a group of friends went into Ballpark Village to celebrate.

“We were hungry so we asked the driver to take us to get some snacks,” she said. “On the way back from a petrol station we had stopped at a light and we heard someone screaming for help.”

The bus sat at the intersection of South Broadway and Walnut, waiting for the signal to change.

“The driver, when we asked where it came from, pointed to this man outside his car at the intersection,” she said.

Both girls told the driver they wanted to get off to see what was going on.

Lily Paniucki to perform life-saving measures on Colin Brown

“I jumped out and we got to this guy standing outside the passenger seat and another guy sitting in the passenger seat and he was holding his neck and he said ‘my son just got shot,'” she said.

Unbeknownst to her, the teenage boy in the passenger seat was Colin Brown, and the man calling for help was his father. Both were driving on I-55 minutes before when police say a bullet came through the windshield and struck Colin.

Paniucki knew she had been placed there for a reason. She told Brown’s father that she was an EMT.

“Looking back on it, I’m glad, I’m so glad I was there to take over and do the best we could for this child at that moment,” she said.

Paniucki graduated from the Respond Right EMS Academy in St. Peters a month ago. She plans to attend medical school next year before eventually joining a fire department.

Lily Paniucki was glad she was able to help Colin Brown

The skills she learned in school played out in a real life or death crisis.

“I could see he was putting pressure on a wound in the front of his neck,” she said. “I couldn’t find a pulse so I knew we had to start CPR right away.”

With the help of her friend and Colin’s father, the three lifted him out of the seat, she said, and laid him flat on the sidewalk, where she began CPR.

“The father could barely breathe on his own, given what had just happened, as if anyone would fight,” she said. “But when I told him to give his son breaths along with my compressions, he breathed for his son.”

After performing CPR for about 10 minutes, another bystander approached Paniucki and offered to relieve her. Between the two, they continued CPR for another 10 minutes before an ambulance arrived.

According to 911 dispatch call logs, a 911 call was made at 22.36. Police responded and deemed the scene safe at 22.46. The first fire truck arrived at 22.50, and the ambulance arrived at 22.52.

Brown remains in the hospital fighting for his life. Paniucki said she’s thankful she was there to help give him the best chance she could.

“When you heard someone screaming for help like that, there was no time to sit around worrying or second-guessing myself,” she said. “I started right away and it all just came to me.”