JROTC cadet at Poudre High recognized for efforts to help man pinned under crashed vehicle
Gage Hencheski didn’t really take the time to think about what he was doing. He simply reacted when he saw a man pinned beneath a truck in a small canyon a few hundred feet off the road.
While telling his younger brother, Luke, to call 911, Gage raced down to the crashed vehicle and talked to the injured man until help arrived. Then, when the paramedics, volunteer firefighters from the Rist Canyon Fire Department and Larimer County Sheriff’s Office deputies arrived, Gage stuck around to ferry equipment back and forth from Whale Rock Road off Rist Canyon to the crashed vehicle.
“I saw someone who was in need and wanted to do the right thing,” Gage said Wednesday after receiving a Meritorious Commendation Ribbon First Award from his Junior Reserve Officers Training Corps in a brief ceremony at Poudre High School.
The injured man went into cardiac arrest as soon as emergency workers lifted the vehicle off of him and he later died at a local hospital, retired Capt. Roy Roby III said at the start of the ceremony. Roby is the instructor for Poudre School District’s first-year JROTC program, housed at Poudre High.
“Obviously, that’s something (Gage) will have to live with for the rest of his life,” Roby said. “But with bravery and little thought, he rushed down to see the individual, and he talked to the individual. If you know much about shock, he stopped the individual from going into shock is basically what he did.”
The crash, Gage learned while talking to the man, had occurred on a curve in the road the night before Gage and Luke found him while traveling on ATVs to their school bus stop about 8 a.m. Feb. 13. Their older sister, Amanda, had seen the crashed vehicle earlier that morning while dropping a nephew off to catch his school bus and mentioned it to Gage and Luke. She didn’t know if anybody was in the vehicle, Gage said.
Gage and Luke not only saw the injured man but immediately sprang into action, with Luke using his cellphone to call for help while Gage raced down the embankment to check on him.
They obviously missed their bus to Poudre that morning but made it to school for their afternoon classes, said Gage, a 17-year-old senior and first sergeant in the JROTC program.
Although Gage didn’t know the crash victim personally, his older brother did. The man, who has not been publicly identified, was a contractor involved in building a new house near the Hencheskis’ home on Whale Rock Road, Gage said.
The Meritorious Commendation Ribbon, Roby said, is given to JROTC cadets in recognition of “superior performance and achievement in attaining the requirements” and “indicative of a demonstrated ability to accomplish goals, achievement of excellence and recognize cadets’ untiring efforts and dedication to personal development, learning and teamwork.”
Gage was also presented with a challenge coin by Fort Collins Police School Resource Officer Josh Golden on behalf of Poudre School District.
Gage is in the process of pre-enlisting in the U.S. Army and awaiting the results of his Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery before reporting to a Military Processing Station following his high school graduation in May.
More than a dozen uniformed cadets were on hand for the ceremony, along with PSD Superintendent Brian Kingsley and about 20 Poudre High staff members, including principal Kathy Mackay.
Reporter Kelly Lyell covers education, breaking news, some sports and other topics of interest for the Coloradoan. Contact him at kellylyell@coloradoan.com, x.com/KellyLyell and facebook.com/KellyLyell.news.
This article originally appeared on Fort Collins Coloradoan: JROTC cadet honored for efforts to help man pinned under crashed truck
