A member of the Brattleboro Fire Department was honored on April 29 by the American Red Cross of Vermont & the New Hampshire Upper Valley at its inaugural Heroes Breakfast.
Lt. Marty Rancourt was presented with the Adult Good Samaritan Hero award for saving the life of his friend, hunting guide Troy Young, after a hunting accident last year in Ohio.
Rancourt was one of nine people honored by the local Red Cross chapter for their acts of courage and compassion.
According to a report by WPTZ-TV, Rancourt has been hunting deer in Ohio with Young since 2010, and usually spends one week a year there in search of trophy bucks.
“He brought us out to our tree stands and the day was supposed to be a day of hunting,” Rancourt told WPTZ about that day.
Instead, Young's tree stand broke, leaving him dangling by his ankles and screaming for help. Rancourt said he and Young's brother searched more than 50 acres of thick forest before finding him.
“I took off his left boot first, and he said, 'Ow, that really hurts,' and then he said, 'but my right one hurts even more,'” Rancourt told WPTZ. “I took that boot off and his foot was frozen. I mean cold, cold, cold.”
Rancourt said Young just wanted to go to bed and sleep off the pain, but Rancourt insisted that Young go to the hospital.
“I said, 'the good part is you may just lose your foot. The bad part is you might not wake up.'”
It turned out that Young had fractured both of his legs in the fall and had developed compartment syndrome, a condition that occurs when blood flow to a limb is curtailed or interrupted, usually leading to amputation.
The recovery process hasn't been easy for Young. In the months since the accident, he underwent several surgeries and suffered a stroke. He is re-learning how to walk and talk again, but Young is grateful that Rancourt insisted he get immediate treatment, saving his life.
“Marty possesses an innate ability to act when others would be paralyzed and to remain calm and focused when nothing about the situation into which he was thrust lent itself to such a reaction,” WPTZ's Stephanie Gorin said about Rancourt when he was presented with the award.
She added that his heroism “was not only evident in his own actions, but in how he provided Troy with the emotional support and drive to survive. As described by Troy, 'Marty, at that moment, never looked back. His instinct and passion for life was transferred to the saving of mine without hesitation. I had always considered myself an Iron Man, but he made sure I understood my iron was in a melting pot.'”
Rancourt has been with the Brattleboro Fire Department for more than 30 years, and has received numerous honors for service above and beyond the call of duty. His most recent award came last year, when he was part of a four-man team that earned a Meritorious Unit Citation for rescuing a man from a collapsed barn in Williamsville in 2011.