US veteran dubbed highway ‘angel’ for using combat first aid to save crash survivor

A US military veteran and trucker recently used his battlefield medical training to save the life of a fellow truck driver whose leg was impaled by a piece of metal after a crash, earning him official recognition as an “angel” of the nation’s highways.

As the organization honoring him tells it, James Brown was driving for Tulsa, Oklahoma-based Melton Truck Lines through torrential rain – as well as low visibility – on 22 May when he saw another trucker lose control, leave the roadway and overturn about 40 miles east of Little Rock, Arkansas.

Brown pulled over to the shoulder leapt out of his cab and ran to the wrecked truck after seeing it slide about 75ft, he said in a statement attributed to him by the Truckload Carriers Association (TCA). He said he helped the crashed driver out of the overturned truck – and then noticed a piece of metal lodged in the man’s leg.

“Before I could tell him, ‘Don’t pull that out,’ he pulled it out,” Brown recounted.

It was immediately evident to Brown that the man had severed an artery, causing him to bleed profusely.

He said he knew the man could quickly bleed to death if they didn’t act. So, drawing on battlefield medical training skills he learned while serving 12 years with the US marines, he cut up a seatbelt, … “made a tourniquet and got it on his leg”, he said.

That decisive action slowed the blood loss long enough to give first responders time to get to the scene of the crash. Though “he wasn’t making much sense” and “had lost quite a bit of blood” by the time the emergency crew got there, he maintained consciousness, according to Brown.

Brown remained at the crash for nearly two hours after first responders arrived to take over the situation. He provided witness statements to investigators before completing his delivery, said the TCA, which since 1997 has administered a “highway angels” program that recognizes truck drivers who display kindness, courtesy and courage in the line of duty.

The TCA welcomed Brown into its ranks of highway angels on 4 June.

Brown said he merely provided the same help he hoped to count on if ever he or his loved ones were in the other trucker’s position.

“If that had been me …, I would hope somebody would stop and help,” he told the TCA. “My wife, my children – I’d hope somebody would stop and do the same for them.”