Double-amputee vet helps stranded Ohio motorists

FAIRBORN, Ohio (AP) — A Marine veteran who lost his legs in Afghanistan is again being called a hero — this time for helping stuck motorists out during a snowstorm.

Larry Draughn, 26, used his pickup truck to pull out three vehicles that ran off the road and into ditches during Sunday’s ice and snow in southwest Ohio, the Dayton Daily News reported. He said he saw the slide-offs from his backyard, where his son was sledding.

“I didn’t want to see anybody stranded on the side of that road; it wasn’t safe,” he said. “It was a sheet of ice, and people kept going into ditches behind my house. I wouldn’t call it heroic.”

But 77-year-old Wendell Ledbetter and his wife, Mildred, disagree. He said other vehicles were sliding past them when Draughn arrived to help, joking that he wasn’t worried about getting into the soggy ditch to hook up to their car.

“He said, ‘Don’t worry about it. I’ve got metal knees. They don’t get wet,”’ Ledbetter recounted.