Nothing against the medical profession, but I've always thought the term "doctor" gets overused, especially in the media, where people with a medical degree are often called "Dr." even though what they're doing has nothing to do with medicine.

For instance, TV broadcasts will often refer to "Dr. Gil Morgan," even though his being an optometrist has nothing to do with his ability to play golf, other than perhaps prescribing corrective lenses for himself.

I'd also thought the same was true with Jerry Punch. ESPN and ABC have always referred to him as "Dr. Jerry Punch" and my thought was always, "What does being a doctor have to do with his career as a broadcaster?"

Quite a bit, actually. Just ask Rusty Wallace.

Wallace is now the broadcasting partner of Punch, who has gone from being a pit reporter to being the lead voice for ESPN's NASCAR races. They'll be in the booth with Andy Petree at Fontana's California Speedway at 5 p.m. Sunday for the Sharp Aquos 500.

In 1988, however, Wallace was a NASCAR driver and Punch was in the pits, and Punch's title of "doctor" became a godsend for Wallace.

"I had a big old wreck coming off Turn 4 at Bristol (Motor Speedway in Tennessee prior to the Busch 500), busting my rear end," Wallace recalled recently. "I was kind of laying on a pit wall, knocked out and not breathing and the first guy to the car was Dale Earnhardt (Sr.) and Jerry, and Jerry realized what was going on and lifted my head up and got me breathing.

"So I'm glad Jerry was around and I'm glad I'm still working with him. He's really helped me out a lot, that's for sure."

Punch, a trauma specialist who also runs an emergency medicine company, said he just happened to be in the right place at the right time.

"We were very fortunate," he said. "At that time, Rusty was unconscious and in respiratory arrest. His car was so crumpled from the spiraling — it had somersaulted side over side and end over end — he was obviously unconscious and the roof of the car was compressed.

"We couldn't get to him and I had just enough fingers to get through the window net to be able to get his jaw pulled forward and get access to the airway and get him breathing from the mouth.

"Earnhardt stopped his car on the track and climbed in the other window and I'm screaming to Earnhardt to get someone to get this roof off so we can get to Rusty and get an airway. (I knew) if we could get to him quickly enough and get the airway and get him suctioned out, that he would probably be OK. We were very fortunate.

"I stood and held the airway open while NASCAR officials came and cut the top of the car off with these high-speed saws and they were spraying me with sparks. They were holding these baseball caps over my face to keep me from getting covered with sparks. We finally got Rusty out and got him to the ambulance enough to be awake and alert and take him to the hospital."

Even after all that, Punch had to go back to work.

"I had to stay; we were getting ready to go on the air and Rusty called back from the hospital that night and they funneled him through to the (production) truck so he could tell our producer — who happened to be Neil Goldberg, who's producing now — Tell Dr. Punch thank you, but boy, you look terrible' from being covered in soot from the car being cut off and flecks of paint all over.

"But we were very lucky that night."

Later that year, Punch was working an ARCA race in Atlanta and helped save the life of injured driver Don Marmor.

Marmor had no pulse, but Punch assisted emergency crews in stabilizing Marmor until a Lifeline helicopter could arrive.

In a sport as dangerous as auto racing, drivers have been fortunate to have Dr. Jerry Punch around.

— Jim Carlisle is a staff writer for The Star. E-mail address: jcarlisle@ VenturaCountyStar.com. For TV-Radio updates, please see his blog at jimcarlislesports.blogspot.com.