Hero troopers save life of lost, freezing man

We need a reminder today. We need a reminder about police officers. They don’t only hand out speeding tickets and make arrests.

They save lives.

They do this in abstract ways. Some officers make hundreds of drunk driving arrests in a career. How many of those might have ended in a fatality before they made it home? They save lives by advocating for people they’ve busted for drug use, working with them and their families, getting them help, getting them clean.

They save lives in direct ways, too.

On Thursday the New Jersey State Police released video of a dramatic effort to save the life of a missing man who got lost in the woods in Sussex County days before Christmas.

By the time the man missing for 24 hours was found he was suffering serious hypothermia and was in real danger of his breathing shutting down. You can hear the tension in the just over two minute video as State troopers do everything they can to save this man’s life.

They worked together as a team, getting ballistic vests beneath him to get him off the freezing cold ground. They took their own uniform jackets off to form layers of clothing over the man’s body. They kept talking to him, kept telling him to breathe, kept him in the moment.

They worked as a team, at some points even laying on top of the man to give their own body heat to save this man’s life. The teamwork they showed, the way they performed as a unit, was impressive.

Police do this sort of thing somewhere every day. Whether it’s being suddenly called upon to deliver a baby on the side of the road or giving CPR until medics arrive.

Too many people are looking upon cops as the people who are ruining lives. Here’s a look at the other side, where police are saving lives every day. The man now recovering at home who was lost in the woods needs no reminder of this. The rest of us could use one.

Opinions expressed in the post above are those of New Jersey 101.5 talk show host Jeff Deminski only.

You can now listen to Deminski & Doyle — On Demand! Hear New Jersey’s favorite afternoon radio show any day of the week. Download the Deminski & Doyle show wherever you get podcasts, on our free app, or listen right now.

Click here to contact an editor about feedback or a correction for this story.