{"id":81668,"date":"2018-09-08T06:52:36","date_gmt":"2018-09-08T10:52:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=81668"},"modified":"2022-01-13T20:33:38","modified_gmt":"2022-01-14T01:33:38","slug":"sgt-1st-class-mario-king-saving-the-world-one-person-at-a-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=81668","title":{"rendered":"Sgt. 1st Class Mario King saving the world one person at a time."},"content":{"rendered":"
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Sgt. 1st Class Mario King, Army Human Resources Command information technology specialist career adviser, is presented the Soldier’s Medal during a ceremony hosted by Maj. Gen. Jason Evans, Army Human Resources Command commanding general. (Master Sgt. Brian Hamilton\/Army)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Sgt. 1st Class Mario King and his wife, fellow soldier Sgt. Adriane King, were driving in Kentucky when a movie-like scene unfolded in front of them.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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The information technology specialist at Army Human Resources Command at\u00a0Fort Knox, Kentucky, received the\u00a0Soldier\u2019s Medal<\/a>\u00a0on Friday for his\u00a0actions\u00a0that day.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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It was May 13, and the Kings were coming back from a surprise visit to Mario\u2019s parents for Mother\u2019s Day.\u00a0 \u201cNormally we take a different route back, but because of all the traffic that weekend, we took a detour,\u201d King told Army Times.\u00a0 They were behind a small car and a fuel truck on a two-lane highway when they noticed the small car had veered off to the left, as if to make a turn.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cBut then all of a sudden, it went back to the right in front of the fuel truck, and that\u2019s when the accident occurred,\u201d said King, who has served in the Army for 17 years.\u00a0 He said he thinks the smaller car misjudged how much room it had to get back in front of the truck, which was in a \u201cno-win situation.\u201d\u00a0 The fuel truck carrying 8,000 gallons of fuel swung around, jackknifed and began rolling down the highway before it came to a stop upside down.<\/p>\n

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\u201cMy wife and I looked at each other like, \u2018Did we really just see that?\u2019\u201d King said. \u201cThis is something you just see in a movie. Like a Michael Bay movie.\u201d\u00a0 The small car had spun around, too, but the driver got out with minor injuries, he said.\u00a0 King and his wife had pulled over at this point and talked to the driver of the small car while others called 911.\u00a0 Then King ran over to the truck and saw the driver, Burl \u201cDoug\u201d Bowling, trying to get out, but he was stuck.<\/p>\n

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\u201cHe was upside down and his feet were stuck under the dash,\u201d King said. \u201cHe managed to grab and push out the windshield.\u201d\u00a0 The sergeant first class pulled Bowling out of the vehicle and dragged him about 150 feet away as the truck\u2019s fuel tank was engulfed in flames and its tires were exploding.\u00a0 \u201cThe flames hadn\u2019t quite reached the cab of the truck yet, but you could feel the heat from the surrounding flames,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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King\u2019s wife, Adriane, said the way the accident happened, they thought the outcome would be much worse.\u00a0 \u201cWe pretty much thought both [drivers] were gone,\u201d she said. \u201cIt was a sense of relief to know both of them were still alive.\u201d\u00a0 King said his Army training kicked in when he helped the truck driver out of the burning vehicle.\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Army Times<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Sgt. 1st Class Mario King and his wife, fellow soldier Sgt. Adriane King, were driving in … Sgt. 1st Class Mario King saving the world one person at a time.<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":667,"featured_media":81670,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[84,130],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-81668","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-military-issues","category-real-soldiers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81668","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/667"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=81668"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81668\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/81670"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=81668"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=81668"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=81668"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}