CHEEKTOWAGA, N.Y. — A Buffalo teenager is being recognized for knowing what do to when a woman became trapped under a car.

Josiah Williams is wise beyond his years.

"I just had that feeling of helping others. Serving the public," he said.

The 16-year-old student at Western New York Maritime Charter School has eyes on a career in the Navy and maybe one day becoming a doctor.

"I like emergency medicine, and being a doctor is something that wouldn’t be bad," he said.

He’s off to a good start. He got his certification in Basic Life Support through the American Red Cross. He also took a STOP THE BLEED course. It's training he used in real life in May, when he saw a woman who had been dragged and trapped under a car in front of a shopping plaza in Cheektowaga.

"Immediately I saw blood coming from a bunch of lacerations to her head, her face," Williams said. Usually, people would freeze. I didn’t."

Quickly, he applied trauma pads to help stop the bleeding. He then assisted a number of Cheektowaga police officers in lifting the car and pulling the woman from underneath it. The woman survived — thanks in part to the efforts of a teenage bystander, something he’s reluctant to take credit for.

"Not necessarily a hero, but part of a hero team," he said. "I consider the team a hero."

That’s why Josiah Williams is the 2021 Red Cross Emergency Response Real Hero.

Josiah, along with another bystander and seven officers from the Cheektowaga Police Department, all earned citations from Assemblywoman Monica Wallace for their emergency response to the situation.