Diana Hubschman, of Mastic Beach, wins Girl Scouts honor
Diana Hubschman, right, has been awarded the Medal of Honor from the Girl Scouts of Suffolk County for an act of bravery that potentially saved the life of her mother, Dawn, left. Credit: Girl Scouts of Suffolk County
A Mastic Beach teen has received a prestigious national award for helping her mother as she experienced a cluster of epileptic seizures.
Diana Hubschman, a senior at William Floyd High School in Mastic Beach, has been awarded the Medal of Honor from the Girl Scouts of the USA for potentially saving the life of her mother, Dawn Hubschman, when she suffered 16 seizures and a mini-stroke in a 20-minute span in January.
The medal recognizes scouts who have demonstrated “extraordinary heroism saving, or attempting to save, a life while exemplifying the values of the Girl Scout Promise and Law,” according to the organization.
“My mom really wasn’t looking good when I walked through the door, so I told her to just go lay down,” Hubschman, 17, said. “I went to put my stuff down from school and she fell into a seizure. After the second one, I saw she wasn’t coming out of them.”
The incident occurred when they were at home with the teen’s grandfather, David Hubschman, who had been released from the hospital two days earlier after open-heart surgery, she said. Once the seizures started, the quick-thinking teen put the family’s dog into a crate and then timed and monitored the episodes after rolling her mother onto her side to help keep her airway open.
Next, she called 911 to report that her mother was having seizures and struggling to breathe and found someone to be with her grandfather. She accompanied her mother in the ambulance so she could speak on her behalf as needed.
“I was her voice until she was able to speak on her own again,” said Hubschman, who described her actions as “second nature” after having helped her mother through past seizures.
Her mother, meanwhile, said she is “beyond proud” of her daughter, whom she calls her “guardian angel.”
“I would not be here today if it wasn’t for her,” Dawn Hubschman said.
The teen’s actions were also praised by Tammy Severino, president and CEO of the Girl Scouts of Suffolk County.
“Diana is a future leader and a person who is lighting the torch for future girls to say, ‘That’s who I want to be like,’ ” Severino said in a statement.
Hubschman, a member of Troop 1116, is also credited with having inspired students and staff at Tangier Smith Elementary School in Mastic Beach to wear purple each year on March 26 in honor of National Epilepsy Day. That tradition continues to this day, she said.
Michael R. Ebert is an education researcher and has worked for Newsday in various capacities since 2003. He was part of an 11-person team named as 2008 Pulitzer Prize finalists for investigative coverage of the LIRR's platform safety issues.
'She had too much trauma' Her case highlights the struggles families face in trying to get help for victimized teens. NewsdayTV's Shari Einhorn has the story.
'She had too much trauma' Her case highlights the struggles families face in trying to get help for victimized teens. NewsdayTV's Shari Einhorn has the story.
