Jason Ruch was nominated by Luke Engelhardt, a private citizen of Saratoga Springs. Here’s what Luke had to say:
“On September 8 this year my vehicle was sideswiped by another driver. The accident was his fault. Luckily there were no injuries but the tension was very high for me because my vehicle had several passengers including my brother, his girlfriend, my wife, and our 10 month old baby daughter (our first child).
The accident occurred on our way home from a family dinner in Provo. It was getting late, it was dark outside and probably an hour past our daughter’s usual bedtime. Due to some shenanigans on the other driver’s part that I wouldn’t find out about until today (because my insurance agent called to tell me the details of the police report) we were there at the scene of the accident for quite awhile.
I was walking around holding my daughter trying to keep her occupied as I could tell she was getting tired and not enjoying being in a strange place when she should be home in bed. This is where Corporal Ruch became my hero for that night.
Corporal Ruch came over and helped me keep my daughter entertained, he even took a picture with us so we could show her later “see this was your first accident!”. He kept a close watch on us while other officers did their police work at the scene, at one point he even brought over a brand new stuffed rainbow colored caterpillar for my daughter. It was about 15 inches long and had a huge smile on its cute face. He didn’t bring it to her to play with, it was for her to keep. She instantly loved it and (as 10-months old do) started trying to eat its nose. The toy was not a cheap one and I was so grateful to Corporal Ruch for the attention to us.
My daughter still loves her bright colored smiley caterpillar. We named it Ruch (which is pronounced Rue by the way) after Corporal Ruch. I am so glad to have officers like Corporal Ruch on duty, not only doing the police work of saving lives, sorting out the truth of a situation, etc. But taking care of our little ones.”