Member from NH Electric Co-op is a Reluctant Hero

August 8, 2008 - IBEW 1837 member Rob Lang was enjoying a summer Sunday afternoon in mid-July when two young children who lived next door came running up to his New Durham home. They told him their dad was hurt. Hurt bad. They needed his help.

The first class lineworker in the New Hampshire Co-op’s Alton District went racing down to find his neighbor bleeding profusely and in a desperate situation. While cutting down some trees behind his home with a chain saw, he had cut some tendons and severed an artery in his leg. He had driven his tractor out of the woods, told his children to see if Rob was home, and then fell off the tractor and collapsed on the ground.

When Brother Lang found his friend and neighbor on the ground, he immediately tried applying pressure to the wound to no avail. As his bleeding friend went in and out of consciousness, Rob reached into the leg and was able to hold the artery together by tightly gripping it with a towel in his hands until the ambulance arrived. Emergency medical technicians told him later that there was no doubt about it: His quick action had saved his friend’s life.

Rob was on his way to Frisbie Memorial Hospital to visit his neighbor when we caught up with him a few days after the accident. Although he was proud of what he had been able to do for his friend, he was reluctant to be called “a hero” and didn’t really relish being in the spotlight.

“I don’t ever want to do it again, I’ll tell you that,” Rob told us. “He was on his way down when I got there. I’m really glad the way it turned out, but it was really upsetting to see that happen to a friend.”

Rob not only saved his friend, but he also saved the devoted father of three children. Everybody has been extremely pleased by his neighbor’s quick recovery — especially Rob.

“He’s doing well now,” Brother Lang said, adding with a laugh, “I told him I wasn’t going to let him die. He had to suffer through life like the rest of us.”