JUST IN: GOP Rep. Saves Child’s Life After Bloody Crash

Rep. Derrick Van Orden (R-WI) was driving along Interstate 35, close to Osceola, Iowa, over the weekend, when he passed by a semi-truck that was pulled over on the shoulder of the road. Mere seconds later, the congressman heard the terrible sound of metal hitting metal. When he looked in the review mirror, he saw something horrific unfold at high speed.

“I’m watching a Dodge Grand minivan disintegrate. It seemed to drift off the road at about 70 miles per hour, more so on the passenger side of the car. My wife, Sarah, was like, ‘What happened?’ I looked at it, I said, ‘Someone just died,’” he recounted gravely.

Van Orden, who previously served as a Navy SEAL and is currently the representative for the 3rd Congressional District of Iowa, immediately whipped his truck around and returned to the scene of the horrific accident.

“I ran to the passenger side, where all the damage was, and there was this 11-year-old kid, and I looked at him, and his calf, which is about as big as my thigh, was completely ripped apart, so I could see his tibia and his fibula, just a big chunk of him bleeding. And he had an arterial bleed in his right wrist,” he went on to say.

The congressman immediately sprang into action. Van Orden returned to his vehicle, tore open his suitcase and retrieved two pairs of socks. Using his training, he fastened them into tourniquets for the young boy’s arm and leg.

“By then, probably 10 people had also pulled over to help, I’m like, does somebody have a knife? And they’re like, yep. So I cut the seat belts off and then made tourniquets,” the Iowa Republican said.

“Some big old Iowa farm dude, probably 60-something, rips off a windshield wiper for his arm, then another lady there said she was a medic. She wound up grabbing a piece of metal and made a tourniquet on his leg, and then all of us packed him up and got him up into the ambulance,” the congressman added.

He then said, “It took about 10 to 15 minutes. He would’ve bled to death.”

On Monday, Van Orden paid the 11-year-old a visit at the hospital in Des Moines. There wasn’t a dry eye in the room.

“What happened out there is everything that I love about America. So we’re in the middle of somewhere, and this happens, and people just start showing up. They start asking, ‘Hey, can we do this? Can we do that?” The Iowa congressman said.

Wrapping up the story, Van Orden said that while he was securing the tourniquet on the child’s leg, he heard folks behind him say, “We need to start doing traffic control.” He then watched men start to block off traffic in both lanes.

“It’s amazing,” he concluded.