'Just Did My Job': Car Wash Manager Made 911 Call That Saved Pregnant Tinley Park Mother, Her Baby

TINLEY PARK, IL — A car wash manager at a Tinley Park gas station is modest about his efforts on Christmas Eve 2025—but his actions saved the lives of a local woman and her unborn baby.

Skyler Smith, 30, had just been doing his job at Gas N Wash, he says, when he noticed a woman unconscious in the backseat of her car. Stacey Doranski, 33, was 36 weeks pregnant and had suffered a brain aneurysm while vacuuming her car.

Smith found Doranski and immediately called 911.

"I thought, 'No, no, no,'" Smith said of finding her unconscious with light foam in her mouth. He jumped into action, going inside to find a customer to help Doranski. Within minutes, Smith said, an ambulance had arrived, and Doranski was whisked away.

Doctors discovered she had suffered a brain bleed caused by a ruptured aneurysm. Specifically, a subarachnoid hemorrhage, or a life-threatening type of stroke caused by bleeding into the space surrounding the brain, usually from a ruptured aneurysm. It's said to cause a sudden, severe "thunderclap" headache, according to Mayo Clinic. Immediate medical attention is vital, as it carries a high risk of death or permanent neurological disability.

First responders returned to tell him that she had awoken in the ambulance—and that she was pregnant.

"That broke me right there when I was at work," Smith recalled to Patch. "I just did my job. Nothing more, nothing less."

Now, months later, Doranski last week shared her story on social media and with Tinley Park Patch in hopes of finding the person who'd made that critical 911 call.

"Without that person calling the paramedics, they said that people with the aneurysm often don’t make it," Doranski told Patch last week. "They don’t make it to an ambulance."

Her condition "could not have been more urgent," she told Patch, and medical teams whirred into action around her.

First taken to Franciscan Health in Olympia Fields, Doranski was then airlifted to Rush University Medical Center. There, her daughter—named Piper Lee—was delivered via cesarean section on Christmas Day. Over the next 16 days, Doranski underwent four brain surgeries and remained in the Intensive Care Unit. Piper, too, was hospitalized in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, and treated for jaundice and low oxygen levels.

Piper went home on Jan. 10; Doranski the next day. Back with her son Raymond, 4, and husband Steve, both she and her daughter are happy and healthy. She is grateful to have lived, and to not have experienced any neurological deficiencies.

"To come out of this with no deficits is truly a miracle," she told Patch. "I can still walk, talk—still live my life as normal."

Doranski still felt like a piece was missing, though—she wanted the caller to know they saved two lives that day.

"An immense amount of gratitude," Doranski said, of how she feels toward the caller, who as of last week she had not known. "My daughter would not be alive—I certainly would not be alive—had it not been for somebody calling to get me help.

"I just want the person who made the call to know that I am forever grateful for their efforts to help me."

Doranski now says it's Smith to whom she's "forever grateful."

"...Just how much gratitude myself and my family have for him," she said, of how she feels toward him. "He truly is my hero."

Smith, who lives in Indiana, insists he was only doing what he'd learned during his two years at Gas N Wash. He's just supposed to help customers, he says.

"Customers slip on ice, you got to help ‘em out," he said, giving one example. "Customers first—they’re top priority at Gas N Wash."

Smith said Tinley Park police reached out to him to ask if they could disclose his identity to Doranski.

"For Stacey? Yeah," he said.

A father himself to two children ages 8 and 10, Smith is relieved Doranski will be there for her children.

"I was just grateful that she came out safe, and her baby came out even safer," he said. "She needs to be there in their life."

"I was so excited that she overcame the adversity. I was thankful to catch it in time."

Gas N Wash told Patch they plan to deliver a care package to Doranski.