Scott County deputy to receive Medal of Valor

Deputy Justin Wooten of the Scott County Sheriff's Department is one of 10 officers statewide who will be honored Thursday for their courage in the face of danger.

Sheriff Rick Walter said he nominated Wooten for the Missouri Medal of Valor -- given annually to officers who go to extraordinary lengths to save people's lives -- based on Wooten's actions after a May 2013 train collision near Rockview, Missouri.

"We had two trains collided," Walter said in a telephone interview Tuesday. "The Union Pacific lead engine laid on its side, and diesel began to spill from it, and it was on fire."

Wooten reached in a window of the burning engine and pulled out two crew members who were trapped inside, Walter said.

"A lot of people may not have done ... what he did," Walter said.

Justin Wooten rescued two men from this burning train after a collision near Rockview, Missouri, in 2013. (Southeast Missourian)

Wooten was the first officer on the scene after a Union Pacific train collided with a Burlington Northern Santa Fe train about 2:30 a.m. May 25, 2013, at a rail intersection near Route M and County Road 210.

The collision set off a chain reaction that derailed about two dozen rail cars and caused the Route M overpass to collapse.

Seven people were injured, including the two men Wooten rescued, but no one was seriously hurt, the Southeast Missourian reported at the time.

The situation could have been much worse, Walter said.

The Union Pacific crew members could not escape the burning train engine by themselves, he said, and the engine was burning behind them.

"[Wooten is] a big man, and he was able to pull those guys out. ... I believe he possibly saved their lives -- at least kept them from getting more injured than they already had," Walter said.

Walter praised Wooten's actions in a written nomination for the medal.

"In total disregard for his personal safety, Deputy Wooten climbed onto the overturned engine and without assistance extricated the two crew members that were injured and trapped inside," Walter wrote. "He then summoned assistance from arriving medical personnel, and with their help moved the railroad employees to safety away from the crash site."

Gov. Jay Nixon will present the Medal of Valor to Wooten and nine other officers from across the state Thursday in a ceremony at the state capitol in Jefferson City, Missouri.

The Medal of Valor is the state's highest award for officers who show "exceptional courage, extraordinary decisiveness and presence of mind, and unusual swiftness of action, regardless of [their] personal safety, in the attempt to save or protect human life," according to the Missouri Department of Public Safety's website.

epriddy@semissourian.com

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Pertinent address:

Rockview, MO