Marine and Iraq War veteran Sgt. Austin Anderson is being hailed as a hero after pulling his friend from the wreckage of a plane crash Friday both initially survived. Anderson later died in the hospital from burns he suffered in the crash.
The 27-year-old Anderson pulled fellow passenger Hannah Luce, 22, from burning remains of a Cessna that was carrying five Oral Roberts University students to a Christian youth rally in Iowa. Also killed in Friday's crash, according to the Associated Press, were Luke Sheets, 23, of Wisconsin; Garrett Coble, 29, of Oklahoma; and Stephen Luth, 22, of Iowa.
Luce is currently in critical condition at the University of Kansas Medical Center. KOCO.com reports she received burns to 28 percent of her body. Her father, Ron Luce, told KOCO:
"We're just being here for here to love her and we're not talking much about the accident itself. All I can tell you is that we asked Hannah about it and all she could do was tear up."
Luce and the four other passengers on the plane were en route to an Acquire the Fire rally sponsored by Teen Mania Ministries, which was founded by Luce's father.
ORU student Brooke Ninowski put together this video about Sgt. Anderson in 2010 as a journalism class project. It gives really fascinating into the kind of person Anderson was:
