UNMC graduate aids wounded in aftermath of Boston bombing

Mr. Rogers, meet Natalie Stavas, M.D.

In a quote that is making the Internet rounds following Monday’s bombings at the Boston Marathon, famed children’s host Fred Rogers says that his mother once told him that in any scary tragedy, you can “look for the helpers” – see the people who are there to provide aid.

Dr. Stavas, a UNMC graduate and now a pediatric resident at Boston Children’s Hospital, became one of those helpers Monday, in an act of courage that transformed her into one of the many faces of heroism in the horrific aftermath of the bombing.

Running the marathon herself, and nearing the end of the race when the bombs exploded, Dr. Stavas jumped a police barricade and argued an officer into letting her through to provide medical help to the injured. Her actions were hailed in media outlets such as the Boston Globe and CNN.

Speaking by phone from Boston Wednesday, Stavas credited her medical instructors and fellow classmates at UNMC with providing her with not only the training to let her help so many people, but the instinct to move toward the danger in order to help.

That drive was touched on in many subtle ways during her time at UNMC, she said. “It gives you the instinct that it’s your duty, that you are called to help.

“They hone their training and teaching in such a way that breeds compassionate doctors, who put people who need their help above themselves.”

Dr. Stavas was quick to point out that she was not alone. Many runners were trying to cross the barricade to help – Dr. Stavas was allowed past because she told police she was a doctor.

“I told the police they had to let me through,” she said. “It was probably something in my voice that convinced them.”

Returning home Wednesday after a shift at work, still sore from the marathon she’d nearly completed two days before, Stavas was more than ready to talk about her friends and teachers at UNMC.

“I want to say thank you to my instructors for being so inspirational and such a big part of my training,” she said. “And my co-medical students pushed me to be a better person. I owe a lot of my instincts and training to them.”