The Truckload Carriers Association has named James Brown of Melton Truck Lines a TCA Highway Angel for helping an injured truck driver following a serious crash near Little Rock, Ark.

On the morning of May 22, Brown was driving through heavy rain about 40 miles (about 64 km) east of Little Rock when he saw another truck lose control and overturn.

“It was raining pretty hard that day,” Brown recalled. “My visibility was probably 25 to 30 feet from my truck. I had slowed down to about 50 or 55 because in that kind of weather, you should be.”

Brown said the truck passed him before leaving the roadway and overturning after returning to the pavement.

“I thought he was going to keep it upright,” Brown said. “But when he came back onto the asphalt, I figured he overcorrected. The truck slid about 65 to 75 feet.”

Brown pulled over and ran to help the injured driver escape the wrecked vehicle. As he was helping, Brown noticed a piece of metal lodged in the man’s leg.

“Before I could tell him, ‘Don’t pull that out,’ he pulled it out,” Brown said.

The object had severed a major artery, causing severe bleeding. Brown, drawing on 12 years of experience in the U.S. Marine Corps, used his battlefield medical training to improvise a tourniquet using a seatbelt.

“By the time I got the tourniquet on, he was still conscious, but he wasn’t making much sense. He had lost quite a bit of blood.”

But the blood loss slowed as the tourniquet stabilized the injured driver until emergency responders arrived.

“With an injury like that, you’ve got about 90 seconds before somebody bleeds out,” Brown said. “Had we not done something, he’d have been dead by the time help got there.”

After first responders arrived, Brown remained at the scene for nearly two hours, providing witness statements and assisting investigators before continuing on to complete his delivery.

“If that had been me in that truck, I would hope somebody would stop and help,” he said. “My wife, my children — I’d hope somebody would stop and do the same for them.”