When the Steamship Authority’s Iyanough ferry crashed into a jetty at the entrance to Hyannis Harbor on the evening of June 16, the impact left 15 people injured.

Stranded on the rocks, the victims of the crash did not have immediate access to medical care. But one of the passengers happened to be Nate Woodason, a patient care tech in the Nantucket Cottage Hospital emergency department.

“Initially I was in shock, he said. “But I’m CPR certified, and working in the emergency department, so I thought I should do this and jump in.”

Although he was slightly injured himself, Woodason sprang into action and began making rounds on the boat to identify passengers who had been hurt. He immediately found several passengers with head injuries and other ailments from the impact of the crash. Woodason provided an initial assessment to the wounded passengers and tended to several lacerations as best he could with limited resources. Soon the members of the Iyanough crew had identified Woodason as someone with medical training and asked him to assess additional passengers who had been injured until rescue crews arrived.

By the time Woodason himself was able to climb down from the damaged ferry onto the jetty and then be transferred by rescue boat to the Hyannis Yacht Club, it was 3:30 a.m. After a short trip back to the Steamship Authority terminal,  he finally got to see the person he had been travelling to visit for Father’s Day weekend: his dad.