House Agriculture Committee Member Derrick Van Orden, R-Wisconsin, is being called a hero, but not because of anything he did in the House chambers.
Instead, it was something he did as a private citizen in a state where he has no constituents.
This past Saturday, Van Orden and his wife were driving on Interstate 35 in south-central Iowa, when he saw a nasty crash in his rear-view mirror. He was certain that “someone just died,” reported the Des Moines Register.
He turned his vehicle around and ran to the scene, where a boy and his mother were inside a van that had just collided with a semi-trailer. Both were still alive, but the boy, Sawyer Whitt, had severe and life-endangering injuries to his leg and arm.
Prior to becoming a member of Congress, Van Orden was a Navy SEAL. It was there that he learned many lifesaving techniques. When he saw the severity of 11-year-old Sawyer’s bleeding, Van Orden ran back to his truck to retrieve a couple of socks, which he used to make a tourniquet to slow his bleeding.
Soon afterward, other passers-by joined in the efforts to help before emergency personnel arrived. They helped with making additional tourniquets and splints, as well as directed traffic.
The Register reported that Sawyer and his mother, Natasha Lyons, were airlifted from the scene to hospitals in Des Moines, and Van Orden made a visit to see Sawyer in the hospital, where he told him the day of his crash was his “alive day,” a term military personnel use to recognize the day they almost died in combat. Sawyer, as of Tuesday, was listed in stable condition.
Van Orden is in his second term in Congress. During that time, he made the news on WATTPoultry.com for advocating for contract growers for the defunct Pure Prairie Poultry.
But I’ve also seen him in livestreams of agriculture committee hearings, which can also be a bit chaotic, with highly partisan overtones and members – including Van Orden – not necessarily speaking respectfully to one another or to their witnesses.
However, the events following the crash and Van Orden’s role in saving a boy’s life just serves as a good reminder that politicians are humans, too.
