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Family Values: LSU's Travin Dural and SU's Randall Menard rescues woman over the summer

8 years 6 months 4 weeks ago Friday, August 21 2015 Aug 21, 2015 August 21, 2015 11:30 AM August 21, 2015 in LSU Sports
Source: LSU Athletics
By: LSU Athletics

BATON ROUGE – LSU coach Les Miles spent a portion of his post-practice media session praising junior wide receiver Travin Dural for his heroic act from July 30.

That day, Dural and his cousin, Southern wide receiver Randall Menard, passed an overturned vehicle shortly after leaving their home in Breaux Bridge. A woman had swerved off of Zin Zin Road and her vehicle landed upside down in a waterless ditch.

Both front doors on the vehicle were jammed and the driver’s side door was crushed against the wall of the ditch.

Seeing the overturned vehicle, Dural and Menard turned around to see if they could help. Dural and Menard pried open the rear passenger door and pulled the woman out of the vehicle.

“We had to muscle it open,” Dural told the Baton Rouge Advocate earlier this week when asked about the accident. “It was a good thing we turned around. I’m glad we got a chance to help this lady out. There were no cars on the street. I don’t know when the next time somebody was going to come by.”

If it weren’t for Michael McQuade, a St. Martin’s Sheriff Deputy, no one at LSU would have ever known of Dural’s heroic effort. Dural never mentioned this incident or his actions to anyone at LSU.

A few days after the incident, the LSU football office received a call from McQuade detailing what had happened. He told Ya’el Lofton, the administrative assistant for Miles, that Dural, “called 911 and stopped and actually gave assistance to this lady. He noticed she was trapped, so he did what he could to get her out of the vehicle. The lady in the car was okay and said how respectful and helpful Travin was to her.”

Miles found out about what Dural did on the day the LSU football team reported to campus for preseason practice. At the first team meeting of the year, Miles told the team what Dural had done and the team responded with a huge ovation. 

“I introduced that story to our team when they arrived for two a days,” Miles said. “Travin is a Good Samaritan for what he did and how he acted. The woman ran into a ditch and couldn’t get out. Travin saw she was trapped and yanked on the door creating an opportunity for her to get out.

“Travin left the scene once the officers arrived and never said anything to anyone here. Then we get a call from the deputy telling us what happened and how Travin responded. So many times in the season we point out a player’s bad play. We get consumed with the negativity that can surround any group of people, athletics or not. You lose sight so many times of the wonderful things people do for other people. Travin Dural, give him a round of applause and hats off to him. He’s a great kid and great person. He will be a good man and good father.”

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