Fire rescue
That was the case May 17, 2015, as Army Capt. Steve Voglezon headed out to do some shopping near Fort Bragg, N.C. Driving through a rural area in Chatham County, Voglezon came upon a horrific scene: An SUV driver had crossed the center line and run head-on into another car, and both cars were on fire. He ran to the SUV and, after making a quick assess- ment, pulled the driver out with the assistance of some passersby. “As we were pulling him out, we
saw that [the driver of the SUV] had an open fracture on his right ankle. I grabbed his torso and two oth- ers grabbed one leg, then the other leg, and we took him about 100 yards from the crash and the fire,” Voglezon recalls. He then applied a tourniquet to the victim’s leg and ran over to the other car and helped
a sheriff’s deputy extract two other injured motorists. “My training helped me to remain calm during this event and to pro- cess what needed to be done,” says Voglezon. “But it wasn’t just me. Without the group effort, the story might have had a tragic ending.”
Military lifeguard
Sometimes the dangerous element isn’t fire but water. In July 2013, Marine Corps Cpl. Brian Babineau decided to enjoy a weekend at Top- sail Island, N.C., not far from his duty station at Camp Lejeune. As he and his friends were relaxing on the beach, they heard a scream. Someone shouted, “There’s a girl drowning out there!” Without hesitation, Babineau sprinted into the ocean and swam out to the girl, who was thrashing around in a panic.
“I told her to relax and put [her]
arms around my neck, and then with my left arm, I trapped her body against mine and started to swim back with her,” Babineau recalls. But the strong current began to push him farther away from the shore, and he had to rely on his training to calm down and focus on swimming against the tide. “It took me 10 to 15 minutes to get back to the beach,” he says. “When we reached land, she ran straight to her father.” Babineau received the Navy Commendation Medal for his actions.
Midair assist
A third element — air — came into play when Air Force Capt. Mark Gongol and his family were flying home from Des Moines, Iowa, after the holidays. The first sign of trouble came when Gongol heard the Boe- ing 737’s engines power down to idle,
Army officer recognized for heroism during Boston Marathon bombing Diamond ran into a nearby sporting goods store to
Army Lt. Col. David Diamond crossed the Boston Mar- athon finish line April 15, 2013, minutes before he heard a blast. The sound and smell immediately brought him back to Iraq — he knew the Boston Marathon was under attack. Diamond sprinted roughly 50 yards back toward the finish line as a second bomb exploded. The scene was chaotic, but he kept his cool. After six combat tours in Iraq, the Special Forces officer knew officials needed to treat the wounded and secure the area. When Diamond saw a police officer, he explained he
was a combat veteran. The police officer asked him to help out where he could, so Diamond assembled a team. “I wasn’t sure how many [bombs] may be out
there, so we were looking in trash cans and clearing stairwells and other areas that were around that first bomb,” he says. He then spotted a group of National Guard sol-
diers and asked for their help in taking down barriers so ambulances and emergency personnel could move into the area. “Once we got the area opened and the scene se-
cured, I began to assess the injuries that were there,” he says. “There were of course [amputations] at legs and the arms and a lot of shrapnel, but we didn’t have any medical equipment.”
62 MILITARY OFFICER MONTH 2005
look for supplies. He grabbed belts that could be used as tourniquets and socks and shirts that could be used to pack wounds. Once back out on the street, he passed the gear out to others helping to provide aid and then began treating some of the victims, includ- ing a man who’d lost both of his legs, a woman who had debris stuck in her abdomen, and another man who was unconscious and unresponsive. For his actions that day, Diamond was awarded the Soldier’s Medal, the Army’s highest award for heroism in noncombat situations. Arizona Sen. John McCain presented him with the medal in September. McCain — along with Army Col. Dave Bolduc, another special operations soldier running the marathon that day who had put Diamond up for the award — was in- strumental in Diamond receiving the medal. Diamond says his Army training was essential to
his response that day, adding he did “what anybody else would do had they been in that situation.” “All the pre-mission training that you ever do in the
military always involves mass casualty training,” he says. “My response was largely built on the backbone of the
Army leadership and the training that I was exposed to.” — Gina Harkins, senior staff writer
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