While others at the scene froze at the ordeal, Engard took advantage of his upbringing and reveled in deploying to war zones to deal with the man’s horrific injuries.
“I have 4 years of fighting experience,” Engard told Task.
On Nov. 17, Engard faced the aftermath of a serious twist of fate on a Mississippi highway. Colton Rogers, 22, was driving a pickup truck that overturned after crashing into a highway guardrail near the town of Laurel, according to local media. Trapped in the rubble and his companions, who were also in the truck at the time of the twist of fate, were unable to let go.
The crash had been so severe that Rogers’ left leg was severed below the knee, a catastrophic injury that left him just minutes before dying of blood loss. He needed medical attention immediately if he was going to survive.
Fortunately, Engard, who was on his way to a farewell luncheon and awards ceremony, saw the accident and stopped, according to a report from the U. S. Army Recruiting Battalion. U. S. Navy – Baton Rouge.
As Rogers lay helpless, he saw Engard approach.
“When I saw him [Engard], I knew I had a chance to stay alive, I was bleeding quite a bit, but I wasn’t going to give up,” Rogers said in the report. “All I can do is listen to other people. “Array said, ‘Oh my God, how are we going to get him out?'”
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As two civilians pulled Rogers out of the truck, Engard saw that steel shards had sliced Rogers’ left leg in two.
“He started screaming at that point, obviously, because it was a painful incident for him,” Engard told Task
As others stared at Rogers’ injury in horror and backed up, Engard remained calm, and he instinctively took off his belt to use it as a tourniquet to stanch the flow of blood from what was left of Rogers’ leg.
“I wrapped it around his leg and squeezed it as hard as I could, which made him scream, but you have to do what you have to do,” Engard told Task
Again following his training, Engard used a marker he took from a bystander to write “T” on Rogers’ forehead and the time — 1230 — that he had applied the tourniquet. The marks would ensure that the medical teams that Rogers would soon be passed to would know how long the tourniquet had been in place
Still, Engard soon learned that the tourniquet needed to be tightened. Someone passed Engard a ratchet strap to tighten the cross and prevent bleeding, a skill he had learned in fight rescue training.
“I let [Rogers] know that I would like to use the belt tightening device,” Engard said. “I told him, ‘I’m going to shoot this 3 times and it’s going to hurt. ‘ And that’s what happened. “
While applying the makeshift tourniquet, Engard called 9-1-1 himself.
“At this point, I’m just training him through the pain for the next 20 minutes, telling him to think about anything else and sleep with me,” Engard told Task.
When Rogers told Engard that he was in terrible pain, Engard first told him to shake his hand. But Rogers was worried that Engard’s hand would be broken if he squeezed it too hard, so the soldier nonetheless gave Rogers a bottle of soda to squeeze.
Engard stayed on the phone to direct emergency responders to the crash site. Once they arrived, Engard told Task & Purpose, the paramedics became occupied with deciding which hospital to take Rogers to and how to transport him while leaving the treatment to Engard.
The paramedics gave him a pair of scissors so that he could cut away Rogers’ jeans. They also provided Engard with new tourniquets to apply to Rogers’ leg.
Once secured, he dialed the proper turnstile with a new time, 13:00.
Still, Gard said, it was clear that Rogers had to get to the hospital soon or he wouldn’t make it.
“I asked how long it would take for the helicopter to arrive and they said 40 minutes,” Engard said. “I knew it wasn’t enough time and I proposed to them – insisting – that they take him to the hospital at that time. “
At Engard’s request, doctors took Rogers to the intensive care unit at Anderson Regional Medical Center in Meridian, Mississippi, where he spent 3 days. He had lost 4 liters of blood as a result of the accident.
“He took matters into his own hands, he did everything right,” Rogers said. “He saved my life and I couldn’t be more grateful. He was the one who calmed the whole situation, he took care of me.
Engard is just the latest example of reactive troops applying a tourniquet to save a civilian’s life. Space Force CPS. Danielle Green and Army Sgt. Michael Wolkeba won the United Service Organization’s Military of the Year award for their reaction to scenes of twists of fate and the application of tourniquets to seriously injured victims.
Rogers and his mother Kisha Beach plan to have dinner with Engard in the new year. Beach is especially grateful that Engard was there when his son was so badly injured.
“I talked to Engard on the phone and I had to resist my words because my whole insides were screaming ‘I love you, I love you, I love you,'” Beach said. “I’ve noticed shots of other people’s status, upstairs, watching, taking pictures with their phones, but he doesn’t. . . many of God’s other friends were there, but he [Engard] let God’s work go through him and saved the life of my only son. “
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