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When a tornado bore down on Joplin, MO, Don Lansaw covered his wife’s body with his own to save her from the flying debris. In doing so, he was punctured in the back and died saving her life.
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{ 50 comments… read them below or add one }
I saw this on the Weather Channel….heartbreaking. Very noble sacrifice
“Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friend.”
If I die of anything besides old age I pray I go down doing something like this. What a Man.
@Karen, that was exacltly what I was thinking. I have a feeling if he knew how that would have ended he would have done it again.
Literally gave my heart a tingle…
He’s a modern Hero Protecting his Wile like that He is a True Hero
There are no words
This is the exact kind of stuff that needs to be featured on a website entitled The Art of Manliness. Talk about a man. Doesn’t get much more manly than that.
I went to the same small high school just outside of Joplin as Don. We both played football there. While he was a few years older, everyone knew him for his selflessness and humor. He truly was a great person and can proudly say I got to know such great person. RIP Don
It just goes to show that the simplest person can become the greatest hero. R.I.P Don.
The art of manliness has been refined.
Sadly there are so many “men” in this world who care about no one but themselves, and would even go so far as to harm the ones they supposedly love. While I don’t know anything about Don I pray that his sacrifice will give all men a reason to pause and look at how we treat our wives and other loved ones.
Ephesians 5:25 Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her
Chivalry is NOT dead!
I pray that God will give me the resolve not to resitate and put my life in the line should my time come.
inspirational person
Stunningly beautiful story. Greater love indeed.
/\ Joplin area resident that thinks you’re AWESOME for posting this!
RIP, Don – very brave and selfless.
Matt 28:5,6 But the angel said to the women,”Do not be afraid, for I know that you seek Jesus who was crucified. He is not here, for He has risen, as He said. Come, see the place where He lay.” Jesus covered each of us too with His flesh… We are privileged to witness such love from Don and his precious bride. Thank You, Father.
That’s what a real man does. Gods bless him
Thank you for putting this on your site. It shows you have heart, soul and good taste. I encourage you to keep this big picture in mind when writing about “manliness”. I will include them by name as we pray for all of those affected by this weather.
My heart goes out to them. Not my prayers. Prayers are for people who seek self-pity, beggers and are ashamed of their future or current situation and/or circumstances when these people are victims and have nothing to be ashamed of because the situation and circumstances were beyond their control. Why do people always put GOD into every tragic situation? The? is where was GOD when this was happening, on vacation? The fact is, GOD is powerless here on earth. And who cares about this supposed spiritual life when your already dead. Do you know of anyone whose ever come back from this pipe dream of an afterlife and spoke about it? C’mon, not even on Oprah?!
Think about it. Where was GOD during slavery, War of 1812, Civil War, WWI, WWII, Auschwitz, Dachau, civil rights movement, Vietnam war, Korean war, 9/11, Operation freedom(Iran/Irag) War, Operation Enduring Freedom(Afghanistan)War, Hurricane Katrina, Indonesian Tsunami, Earthquake in Japan, recent waves of deadly tornadoes in the heartland, when your house was being foreclosed, car repossessed, when you were praying for the winning #’s to the Powerball/Mega Millions to save everything, when your Dad/Mom wasn’t around when you were growing up, when your husband left you for his mistress, when your boyfriend/girlfriend cheated on you or (w/your best friend), when you were being bullied, beat-up, sodomized, raped, murdered, kidnapped, robbed, stabbed, carjacked, a hostage, adulterer, fornicator, viewing pornography adult/child, abused, neglected, stealing, lying, dishonest, a victim of domestic violence, plane crash, car crash, home invasion, identity theft, incarcerated, molested by the Catholic Priest in Catholic School etc. But yet we want to interject GOD always after the fact. If you could foretell that something was going to happen and you did nothing to prevent it or stop it, aren’t you considered an accomplice of the crime. In this case, wouldn’t be murder! I mean after all, aren’t you the Alpha and Omega responsible for all thing’s??
She’s right, her husband was the hero as are those who have lost their lives, perished and sacrificed their lives in these situations and circumstances, who help, protect and for the survival of other’s/mankind when JESUS/GOD was absent, and for that alone I applaud your husband and my heart goes out to you and your family.
Your responsible for your own energy and no one can complete you. Yet people are still convinced that were suppose to be God-fearing and pray to him who has done nothing physical in the reality world.
I wish I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that I would have the courage to sacrifice my life for another as this man has done. This man is a hero, and I pray to God that his wife find comfort through this difficult time.
Perfectly appropriate for The Art of Manliness site. Thanks for posting it.
Where was God? Right beside people like Don. Just because you may not understand why God does as he does, that doesn’t mean God doesn’t know what He’s doing. He simply doesn’t view death like we do. We see it as an end. He sees it as a gateway.
We are told that “Greater love hath no man than he lay down his life for another.” I think that’s the whole point of living a life in a like this world – to bring us to where we can make that choice one way or another. In this world every man (and woman) is given free choice. All the abuses mentioned above go along with people having free choice. If you can choose to do great good, you can also choose to do great evil.
I think the purpose of this world is to bring us to the point where we choose who we will serve – ourselves or others (and, the fact is, choosing to serve God IS choosing to serve others).
Don chose to put someone else’s needs ahead of his own. Our soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq choose to lay down their lives every day for the greater good. Firefighters, cops, teachers and billions of others choose to place the needs of others ahead of their own. These are the sort of folk who will be the inhabitants of heaven and the Earth made new. I don’t think it would be safe to grant them eternal life without their having witnessed first-hand the consequences of choosing “vigilant selfishness” as a lifestyle. The horrors of this life make heroes and villians out of us – same horrors but different kinds of people coming out the other side. Ironically, it seems that only when a man chooses to serve others, is he truly free himself. He is able, then to set sail and choose the direction of his own life’s voyage without being blown about by circumstance. When he chooses himself above all, he becomes like a survivor on a life raft, blown about by every wind and wave that comes along.
The life of service is free. You choose based on principles you set for yourself and upon your own reasoning, despite the events that might otherwise shape your life. You shape your life, with God’s help of course, but it is your ultimate choice to do justly and to love mercy. You are not forced to live that way. God never interferes with that choice.
The life devoted to self on the other hand is, as B.F. Skinner described it, without free will at all, but simply the consequence of the random series of events that happen to you. Life shapes you. You spend life reacting, not acting whatever you might believe. You shake your fists in anger at every misfortune and trial and challenge. You are a boat without a tiller in a raging sea. Skinner believed free will was an illusion and for those who choose themselves above all, I believe that is entirely true.
Me, I’d rather choose for myself than have my choices dictated by random chance, accidental evolution or the often malicious actions of others. Ironically, it is in making the choice to serve God and my fellow man that true freedom is given back to me. My will, having passed through His hands, is given back to me scraped clean of the barnacles we tend to pick up in this old world.
It makes sense. I don’t think you could make principled, free and loving people any other way than to let them see the consequences of doing it their own way. Perhaps there was no other way for God to create finite creatures like us and safely give us the ability to choose. Maybe this nasty old world is boot camp for those who would be immortal – kind of like BUDS training for Navy SEALs. BUDS training is miserable and painful, but without it, you’d never become a SEAL.
Just my observation – a different view of a wicked old world in response to “Universal’s” post. Accept it, Reject it. Embrace it or ridicule.
It really is your choice after all.
Tom
* And yes I’ve seen plenty of evidence of God’s existence with my own eyes. That was the deal I made with Him when I joined up – show me! He did so – rather convincingly.
Well said Tom.
God gave everyone free will. Because some people choose to do evil, does not mean God does not love us.
God is love. This man just proved it when he gave his life for one that he loved. Ad Majorem dei Gloriam!
Events like this are the culmination of a life spent lived refining ones character. It’s pass or fail.. He passed with flying colors.
^ Universal’s comment is SUCH a soapbox, secular copout of a response, totally inappropriate on THIS format, of all places. But that’s MY gut instinct, NOT the way MY Savior would choose ME to react to these words… And then, ^Tom King replies with one of the most poignant replies I’ve ever read… So well put, amazing. I thank GOD Bethany had such a precious love, and know she will go forward to do wonderful things in her life. You can SEE that in her. And as Tom said so eloquently, WE CHOOSE. No one, not our parents, siblings, friends… God, choose for us. I praise God, that I serve a Risen Savior that loved me enough to give me the wonderful gift of choice. Thanks to Tom, and God bless Bethany.
May Our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, welcome Don into the halls of Heaven, and may He grant strength, peace, and comfort to those who mourn his loss. Thank you, sir, for your selfless example of manliness. May more men be inspired by it.
I wish more news stations would pick up on this kind of heroism and love of a man for his wife.
As has been said so eloquently here, THIS is manliness.
Real men get rid of their imaginary friends at the age of eight. Real men don’t believe in Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, or Jesus. What this man did was the ultimate selfish act. The most valuable thing in his life was his wife so he chose to save her at the expense of his own life. His needs and desires came first, which was to have his wife live. Assuming some primitive belief system as being involved is demeaning to his efforts and belittles his choice.
I don’t know why the atheists here feel the need to soil a beautiful story with their belief that there is no God. If you don’t believe, fine. That’s your deal. Don’t belittle the rest of us for our belief. I am a “real man” as much as any other, and without Jesus Christ and His sacrifice, I wouldn’t be here. I’m off my soapbox now, and I will not further soil this story of selfless love by replying to any diatribe the atheists may retort with.
Again, I commend Don for his loving sacrifice, and I ask the Lord to welcome him into the Kingdom of Heaven.
It is the religious that have ruined a wonderful story of personal strength by invoking their imaginary friend. If you want to believe in fairy tales, it is your right. Go ahead. But please keep it private.
Don sacrificed nothing. He made a conscious choice to provide complete happiness to himself, the act of saving his wife. Sacrifice implies that the person being sacrificed has less value than the person demanding the sacrifice, and this most definitely was not the case. Selfless love means that you derive no pleasure or joy in your love, but do so only out of duty and sacrifice. If his love were truly selfless, then Don would not have cared if his wife had lived or died. He sacrificed himself for his own personal reasons, not hers, and in doing so, showed that he viewed his wife as the reason for his sense of joy.
Make room in the dictionary for a picture of Don next to the definition of hero….a truly heroic act that not a lot of people would be willing to make.
Wonderful example of the protection a man is supposed to be for his wife. Sorry for the loss.
How can some of you use a story like this as your platform to profess your hate for others and what they believe? Just because not everyone is as equally ignorant or close minded as you are does not mean they are wrong. If you want to follow your own hate and atheist propaganda that is your right. But please follow your own advice and keep it private. You have your beliefs we have ours. The first amendment does not only apply to you and your opinions of atheist anti-Christian elitism. This man was a hero for his selfless act regardless of his beliefs. And if we choose to see the beauty in it and praise God for giving us this small miracle who are you to say we are the wrong ones and force your prejudice on us? It seems all the religions people here are speaking out of love and support for this mans wife and the many others who have suffered and are finding reason for praise and joy amid this horrific event. While the anti religious are the ones forcing their opinions on everyone else and using a massively inappropriate arena for professing their hatred.
This story is about Don. A truly selfless man and a loving husband. A man we can all learn from. If only every man loved his wife this much. This world would be a better place. May the Lord bless him and keep him. And may God be with the wife he left behind and comfort her in her time of grief. Our prayers go out for her today and all the others who have suffered from this disaster.
And this goes out to Universal who asks where was God during slavery, 1812, american civil war, world wars 1 and 2, the holocaust, and all of the countless disasters, genocides, tragedies, murders, wars, and suffering.
God was in the same place then as he was when his own son was being brutally and unjustly tortured and killed by his own people. He knows suffering and pain more than we ever will. We have no place to judge him or hold him accountable just because he does not measure up to our standards and expectations.
You can be as bitter toward God as you want. But he still loves you. And Im sure if you ever took the time to learn about Him and actually read the Bible, not just listen to what others who say they’ve read it say (I promise they havent) you might come to some different conclusions.
A story of a selfless hero. Lets stop pushing each other around with whatever are beliefs are and leave the focus on him.
Just a great story. Is there any better way to go out?
This got way out of control, thank you @universal for starting that. You have some serious issues that you need to go talk with some friends or some enemies or someone about, but you didn’t need to put it on here. I want everyone who was arguing on here to realize it was like you arguing at the man’s funeral over something that in this context is TRIVIAL. The whole, what you believe debate needs to be on some other forum. So there, let’s agree that NO ONE ELSE SAYS ANYTHING THAT ISN’T DIRECTLY RELATED TO DON’S ACT OF SELFLESSNESS. Agreed? good.
Don made an amazing choice, and he made the ultimate sacrifice for his wife. Truly a lesson that every male needs to learn before he can consider himself a true man. Make’s me ask, “What is my life worth to me?” I hope, when the time comes, that I will decide that others come before myself.
What’s truly sad is that some of you talk like this is extraordinary…almost like you wouldn’t have done the same thing. I propose a toast: “To Don Lansaw for selflessly and honorably demonstrating how to be a MAN. May his respected name become legend. May young boys hear of his courageous deed and resolve to become MEN brave as he. Long live Don Lansaw!”
Good job buddy….Good job indeed.
As some already said, it doesn’t get much manlier than that.
On another note: You people always bringing “god or not” to the table disgust me. Keep your beliefs to yourself. Also, please don’t fuel those discussions with “wah wah where was god then baaaw”.
I do believe in something. But I don’t (randomly) tell – why? It doesn’t add to this event, is out of context – and of what interest should that be to you (unless you’ve asked me)?
What I believe is the most sad is not that someone who obviously had nothing better to do than come on and be a troll did so – they’re following whatever mindset it is that makes them do it. (I.e. Universal, Tom)
What is more sad, to me, is the fact that (a) people chose to answer them instead of letting their comment hang where it belonged – in the open air, with no one bothering to acknowledge it and (b) that the moderators of the site don’t take it upon themselves to remove comments that are as blatantly a firebrand as that one. Free speech still comes with responsibility.
How can we help support his widow? I would GLADLY send her some funds in her husbands Honor. Anyone know how?
I wish he had a child to carry on that brave spirit.
The human spirit is amazing.
I’m secular as well. But…
Don’t lump all of “us” in the same boat: I believe what he did was a selfless, heroic act.
Just because he knew he did it because his wife meant a great deal to _him_, does not mean he didn’t also do it because he knew saving her life was the right thing to do.
I don’t think the “joy” of the satisfaction quite compares to knowing you’re likely to get a gruesome death out of it. There might have been a way to save both their lives… but all he knew at the time was his instinct to protect someone he loved.
I’m not religious, but I do accept “God” as the (inexplicable) inherent potential for good in all of us. Regardless of creed or doctrine, this works. As such, I will not discount your prayers; they have meaning.
Don Lansaw R.I.P.
Wow. There’s a good man for you. There’s not a better way to go, and short of dying of old age, this is how I’d wanna go. Great job, Don.
I doff my hat to you sir. Well done & may you rest in peace.
am i the only one who thinks this man is quite dumb. I mean hats of to him for saving his wife. But a smart man wud sheild them both with some object. And all the atheists here are stupid your stupid survival of the fittest would mean the man would hav ran and left her. And for christians sayin god was with him. Gods with everyone fools christ is just a man not a god. Too many ppl watch films and try and recreate them in reality instead of using inteligence.
R.I.P Don, the art of manliness personified