Wyoming Highway Patrol, Red Cross, DCI Honor Men Who Saved a Life

Yes, it was a big deal.

"You guys saved a life," Wyoming Highway Patrol Lt. Clint Haber said at the Casper Wyoming Department of Transportation office on Wednesday.

"There's people having Christmas today with their families because of you," Haber said.

"That's a big deal," he said. "Otherwise, without the quick actions, right, they might not be having Christmas with their families; and what a big deal that is."

Haber and other WHP officers joined officials with the Wyoming Division of Criminal Investigation and the Wyoming Red Cross to present Trooper Adam Bruning and DCI agent Brad Reinhart with the Red Cross Lifesaving Award for Professional Responders called the Certificate of Extraordinary Action. The award is the highest from the Red Cross to individuals or groups of individuals who save or sustain a life using CPR skills.

Haber said Bruning and Reinhart were at the Casper Recreation Center on Aug. 16 for unrelated activities when they saw a commotion about a man who collapsed while playing basketball at the Casper Recreation Center in August.

They performed cardiopulmonary resuscitation for three minutes until emergency medical service personnel arrived to take him to the Wyoming Medical Center, Haber said.

Haber, who is Bruning's immediate supervisor, recounted how he received a call from Bruning, who spoke calmly about helping somebody, "'... guy's playing basketball and his heart stopped beating or something....'"

Haber had to draw out the details about what happened, he said. He also called Reinhart who told him, "'we're just doing what anyone else would do.'"

Not really, Haber said, because not everybody jumps in to save a life.

Wyoming Red Cross executive director Jan Daugaard said this marked only the second time when the organization presented the certificate in Wyoming, with the first happening last month in Riverton. Nationally, only 500 such awards have been given, she added.

Besides the Red Cross awards, the Federal Bureau of Investigation honored Trooper Jason Sawdon for his assistance in investigating a vehicular homicide on the Wind River Indian Reservation in 2017. The work resulted in the successful prosecution and sentencing of Winter Hawk Goodman.

After the event, Bruning said he and Reinhart were in separate areas of the recreation center, saw the panic, and their training kicked in.

It was the first time he'd ever performed CPR, and his trainers told him he would get exhausted, he said.

"It's very high stress," Bruning said. "Moments count, and so when we were doing that, myself and the other officer, we would switch off."

Bruning recommended people take CPR and other courses through the redcross.org/takeaclass.