It is nice to a happy sports story and not another criminal one.
NCAA player finally meets soldier whose life he saved, given medal
The freshman hockey player and the National Guard captain met at center ice on Saturday, face-to-face that night for the first time since Union College forward Kevin Shier helped save the life of Timothy Neild.
On Dec. 8, 2013, Shier and his father were driving from Syracuse to Union for a recruiting visit when they spotted a pickup truck burning near a concrete barrier of a bridge on the New York State Thruway. Neild was trapped inside.
Shier and another man helped cut Neild’s seat belt and dragged him out of the burning truck, which exploded soon after. The National Guardsman was severely hurt in the crash, and was placed into a medically induced coma for 11 days.
“We thought he was dead,” recalled Shier.
But he was alive. And on Saturday, it was time to thank the freshman hockey player who helped save that life.
“I wouldn’t be here today — or at all — had Kevin Shier not done what he did,” Neild said, via the Daily Gazette, before Union’s game vs. Princeton, “and it’s so incredible to finally meet him.”
Before the game, Neild pinned the New York Conspicuous Service Medal on Shier, which ranks only behind the Medal of Valor as far as these honors go.
Shier and his team gave Neild and his family – his wife and their 3-year-old daughter were in attendance – a signed Union College jersey.
“It was pretty surreal up until six months ago or so, and very surreal up until we found out that Capt. Neild was OK and he was recovering well,” he said. “It changed my life, for sure.
“It’s been kind of emotional. It was nice to meet Capt. Neild to kind of, not give it closure, but to solidify what had happened.”
If Shier sounds humble, Neild said it’s expected. "He says what a lot of the true heroes say: 'I did it because he would have done it for me,'" he said.
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