Newport Police Officer Kenneth Little was honored Monday evening with the Newport Police Medal Award for saving a man’s life.
Newport Police Chief Chris Fangman said the Medal Award is rarely given out, and something extraordinary has to happen to receive it.
“As police officers, we are not trained like our fire department to deal with some of the gore and things that they get to experience throughout their tours,” Fangman said. “But inevitably, as police officers, just by the nature of the game, we’re on patrol, and we are usually on scenes before the fire trucks and the paramedic trucks.”
Little was one of the first on the scene of an incident involving a pedestrian struck by a train. He had to wait for firefighters and paramedics to make their way with all their equipment into a wooded area, where, in the meantime, he utilized his tourniquet training.
“He saved his man’s life by putting a tourniquet on and making sure that he was prepped and ready for as soon as the firemen arrived to get this person to the hospital,” Fangman said. “This was extraordinary because of the location and what it did for this man and this man’s family, who was still alive.”
