Evangelist Franklin Graham is honoring the life of an English pastor who heroically saved his wife’s life by taking the full impact of a runaway semi-truck when it hit their vehicle.
According to Manchester Evening News, Pastor David Lalgee died at the scene of an accident that involved a semi-truck and four vehicles in Manchester last week.
Authorities say the truck lost control and collided with two vehicles before crashing through a median and hitting another two cars.
Lalgee was behind the wheel of one of the cars, with his wife, Jo Lalgee, riding as a passenger. His family said the 64-year-old had just finished seeing family and was on his way home.
They say he saw the truck coming in their direction, he swerved his vehicle to take the brunt of the impact, ultimately saving his wife’s life.
“When we came to a stop, all the airbags had gone off, but I thought we were OK,” Jo told the DailyMail. “But I could see David and there was blood streaming from his head. I got out of the car, and apart from a couple of broken ribs I was OK.”
(link: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14532023/Hero-grandfathers-final-act-save-wife-certain-death.html)
“But the car had been completely crushed. It was a miracle,” she recounted. “The doctors did everything they could for David, but they couldn’t save him.”
His step-daughter Connie wrote online that Lalgee had “given his life to save the woman he loved” and that in his final moments of life, “he put others before himself.”
“David saved my life. It was a miracle that I walked away from the accident, he did everything he could to stop the (truck) from hitting me,” Jo said.
“He sacrificed his life to save mine and I’ll be forever grateful to him for that,” she added. “When we saw the (truck) break through the central reservation, David knew exactly what was going to happen.”
Other emotional tributes have been pouring in including one posted online by Evangelist Franklin Graham.
“This pastor was a hero,” Graham wrote on social media last week. He also asked his followers to pray for the Blackpool pastor’s family.
Graham said that Lalgee’s son-in-law, Reuben Morley, works for the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association (BGEA) and shared John 15:13 in his honor. The scripture reads, “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.”
Morley says he is planning to complete a 100-mile ultramarathon in Lalgee’s memory.
“David was a strong, loving and devoted husband, son, father, grandfather, brother, and pastor, and was deeply loved by so many,” he wrote on a GoFundMe page.
“David’s last moments on earth were spent how he so often lived, protecting the ones he loved, and because of his heroics on the night, nobody else lost their life,” he expressed.
***Please sign up for CBN Newsletters and download the CBN News app to ensure you keep receiving the latest news from a distinctly Christian perspective.***
