Patrol Officer Pabis is shown with the Chief of Police Colonel Bradford Connor.


(1-18-23) The Warwick, Rhode Island Police Department bestowed its prestigious “Life Saving Award” upon Patrol Officer Stephanie Pabis at a city hall ceremony on Monday, January 9, 2023 for providing emergency medical care to a young woman who had been ejected from a vehicle during a violent crash.

Officer Pabis was the first officer to respond to the serious accident on September 10, 2022 on Warwick Avenue in Warwick. Upon arrival, she faced a chaotic scene and ran toward a crowd which had gathered around a victim, ejected from an SUV, lying on the sidewalk with a severe laceration to the leg, bleeding profusely.

Without hesitation, as the woman began drifting into unconsciousness, Officer Pabis precisely applied a tourniquet to the leg and stopped the bleeding until EMT’s arrived and transported the young mother of two to Rhode Island Hospital where she survived after multiple operations.

“The heroic actions Officer Pabis took on this day undoubtedly saved the life of this citizen,” said Lieutenant Matthew Higgins as the award was presented.

Hundreds of people in the packed auditorium gave the young policewoman a standing ovation.

“It was a team effort and any of my fellow officers would have taken the same action,” said Officer Pabis, giving credit to EMT’s, surgeons and an unidentified passer-by who assisted her at the scene. “I’m just glad my training at the Rhode Island Municipal Police Training Academy kicked in and we were able to send this woman back home to her family.”

“All of our officers do an excellent job and when we have heroic acts like that, it’s important to bring them in front of the public to show what quality work our men and women do,” said Colonel Bradford Connor, Warwick Chief of Police.

Officer Pabis was one of two officers receiving the Warwick Police Life Saving Award. The other was Officer Thomas Greene who administered Narcan to a person overdosing in a vehicle on busy Interstate 95.

Officer Pabis now serves in the Dover, New Hampshire Police Department.

She is the daughter of Paul Pabis and Holly Patrice Wood (formerly of Rockford, Ohio) and niece of Sheila Baltzell-Linn and Mark Linn of Celina, Ohio and Colleen and Wally O’Steen of Huntsville, Alabama.

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