By NEAL WAGNER / City Editor

Two Shelby Baptist Medical Center employees were honored by their peers for helping to rescue an elderly woman from under her car in the Pelham YMCA parking lot and for helping on medical missions all over the world.

The Alabama Hospital Association’s Birmingham Regional Hospital Council named SBMC physical therapist Steve Howe and medical intensive care unit registered nurse Martha McMinn to the organization’s regional Hospital Hero award list during a Nov. 1 luncheon in Birmingham.

The two SBMC employees were among five Birmingham-area physicians honored “for their contributions to health care,” according to the regional council. The organization awards the designation to those “who have demonstrated exceptional dedication to the health care field.”

As a result of receiving the regional Hospital Hero award, Howe and McMinn will now attend the state Hospital Heroes banquet in February, where they will be eligible to receive the statewide award.

“These amazing individuals deserve to be called heroes, not only because they are an inspiration to their colleagues, but also because they have raised the bar in terms of what it means to provide exceptional patient care,” said Alabama Hospital Association President J. Michael Horsley.

Howe received the award after he helped to save an elderly woman trapped under her car in the parking lot of the Pelham YMCA.

Howe was working at the Shelby Baptist satellite office at the YMCA when he was called to the parking lot and discovered the woman had been knocked down by her car and had her leg trapped under the vehicle.

Howe quickly pushed the car off the woman’s leg, put the vehicle in park, assessed her injuries and helped to keep the victim calm until paramedics arrived.

McMinn was awarded after she has been involved in disaster relief in Alabama and abroad. She has been serving as a nurse in the SBMC medical intensive care unit for the past 37 years, and recently returned from a mission trip to Haiti, where she was chosen to lead her medical team.

After the April 2011 tornado outbreak in Alabama, McMinn also worked to provide care for those affected. She was recently awarded the SBMC “Because I Care” award for working to train new nurses at the hospital.