POULSBO — Lindsay O’Neill-Dewing and her fiancé, Gene Reyes, were dining on Aug. 15 on Azteca’s outdoor patio on Highway 305 near Lincoln Road when they heard the crash.

“I ran while Gene called [911],” she said.

As O’Neill-Dewing neared the scene, she realized the driver was someone she knew: Richard Keyes, a North Kitsap School District maintenance employee and a friend of her mother, an NKSD educator.

She said later, “[My] mom said Richard stops by her class and helps give struggling kids life advice. He’s the nicest guy and has a great sense of humor.”

O’Neill-Dewing held Keyes’s hand while other volunteers applied pressure to his head wound.

“He was in bad shape,” she said. “[He was] bleeding badly and glass shards were everywhere.

“We just asked him what his name was, what day it was, if he could hear us. He answered weakly each time.”

The collision occurred at 4:10 p.m. when Keyes’s car slammed into the back of three cars stopped at the traffic light on Highway 305 at Lincoln Road.

Units from the Poulsbo Fire Department, Poulsbo Police Department, and the Kitsap County Sheriff’s Department responded to the scene.

“Traffic had slowed for a red light,” said Scott George, the driver of the third car in the collision. “All of sudden — wham! — everything flew up in the air and my car slammed into the car in front of me and they hit the car in front of them. I looked around to see what happened, but I didn’t move until I checked myself out.”

George, who lives on Bainbridge Island, was on his way to get a haircut. The couple in the car in front of him that his was catapulted into was also driven by two Bainbridge residents, Xavier Valdez and Jade Escamilla. They were on their way into Poulsbo to have dinner. The car at the front of the crash suffered minimal damage and its occupants did not leave the car to be interviewed.

George, Valdez and Escamilla were all wearing seatbelts. The occupant of the last car in the collision told emergency personnel that his seatbelt was broken, so he was not wearing it.

On the sidewalk after the collision, Larry Barich watched his wife, Konni Barich, a nurse, respond to the scene before the paramedics arrived.

“She got there right when the Poulsbo police did,” Larry said.

Konni, who directs a foreign language program, has a nursing license and volunteers for the Red Cross.

“Sometimes I’m out volunteering with them,” she said of the rescue team.

This day, however, the couple was planning to make a deposit at the Kitsap Credit Union Poulsbo branch.

“I heard, ‘Is there a doctor or a nurse available,’ and I just ran over,” she said.

“The first responders must have been quick,” Larry said. “I’m really proud of her … she’s saved a couple of lives.”

Konni said of the injured man’s condition: “It’s hard to say. He has a possible broken leg and it’s hard to tell what kind of internal bleeding he has … There was a head wound; we put pressure there.”

“The first thing I look at is if they’re conscious, if they have a pulse, and if they’re breathing,” she said. “Keep talking to them, and make sure they’re with ya.”