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WEST CHESTER TWP. - When Maureen Leist and Adam Lane saw a police officer in distress on the side of Cincinnati-Dayton Road, they didn't hesitate to help.
Sgt. Matthew Beiser had been shot twice by a gunman who would then shoot a second officer and take his own life.
Beiser, who is recovering from gunshot wounds to his leg and shoulder, publicly thanked the couple last week, although he didn't know their names.
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"I'm (lying there) taking all of this in, and I'm thinking, 'Man, this is pretty incredible,' " Beiser said then.
But the couple said Sunday that they did nothing extraordinary. "You really didn't have a choice," said Leist, 28, an anesthesiologist for Fort Hamilton Hospital. "I don't know many physicians that would be able to just drive past that."
On the evening of March 9, the couple was returning from an errand when they came upon the scene.
"We were driving back to meet friends for dinner, and we saw the (cruisers) on the side of the road," said Lane, 29, a brand manager for Kroger. "Maureen said 'Oh, my gosh slow down, it looks like someone's injured.' We saw an officer leaning over someone else on the ground."
Leist identified herself as a physician and began examining the sergeant's wounds. The other officer gave them a pocket knife to cut off Beiser's uniform to treat the shoulder wound.
"She took charge of the situation," Lane said about his wife. "She told me to go to the car and told me to get a rag or a cloth. I went and couldn't find anything clean. All our towels were covered with dog or horse hair. The only thing we could use was my T-shirt." So he stripped off the garment and Leist used it to apply pressure to the wound. The couple continued to take his pulse and hold his hand until paramedics arrived, Lane said.
"He was coherent," Lane said about the sergeant. "The other officer was keeping him in a conversation to keep him awake and keep him from going into shock.
"He just kept asking 'Is it bad?' and 'Am I going to be OK?' She (Leist) kept assuring him that it was fine," Lane said.
Leist, who's seen a lot worse during her medical training, said she felt calm. The most stressful thing was not having medical supplies.
"As an anesthesiologist, I'm used to having a machine that measures everything," she said. "I didn't have any of that. That was the scariest thing. I didn't even have gloves."
She's since bulked up her in-car first-aid kit, she said.
The couple left the scene quickly after paramedics arrived. They didn't learn until the next day that a second officer had also been wounded.
Officer Jeffrey Duma was shot in the shoulder by Matthew Hutchinson, 23, of Deerfield Township, after the chase ended in Sharonville, police said.
Hutchinson was a front-seat passenger in a car driven by John Brochu, 24, of Deerfield Township. He and back-seat passenger, Bruce Suggs Jr., 24, of Mason, are being held on $1 million bond in the Butler County Jail
Leist and Lane kept quiet about their role until they learned last week that he wanted to find out who they were. The couple contacted the police department. They hope to meet Beiser when he's well enough.
"He's defending the area I live in too," Leist said. "I'd love to talk to him. I'd tell him thanks and I'm glad he's doing OK."
The weren't armed, but the woman who is a doctor apparently rendered aid to one of the wounded officers until the paramedics arrived. Hopefully from now on she will carry a more complete kit in her vehicle. 
