WASHINGTON COUNTY (KFSM) -- Less than one month after he was shot in the hip, Washington County Sheriff’s Office Lt. Ti Augustine showed how much he has recovered by walking across the stage to be honored for his actions.
Augustine was given the Sheriff's Unit Citation Award, as well as the Medal of Merit.
"I don't deserve any of that," Lt. Augustine said. "There is only one person who deserves any of that, and He died on a cross for me."
Augustine has been recovering in local hospitals, and therapy units, for nearly three weeks.
His wife, Emily, and colleagues have been beside him the whole way.
"It is a big family here. Everybody takes care of each other," Emily Augustine said. “I have had a couple of days where it just kind of hits me, that my husband has been shot.”
Honored alongside Lt. Augustine were his fellow responding deputies, and the dispatchers who worked the call.
"I am so pleased to see these people, who helped me so much, get honored," Lt. Augustine said. "They deserve so much more."
While Lt. Augustine praised the community for their overwhelming love and support, others called him a hero.
“To me, he is a hero,” Emily Augustine said. “He doesn't want to claim that status, but he is. And so are all the others that were there, and helped in that ordeal that day.”
Lt. Augustine said the heroes are the citizens, and other law enforcement, who helped him survive the shooting.
“The man who drove that truck [carrying Lt. Augustine to an ambulance], those [officers] who drug me up that hill, those guys are the real heroes,” Lt. Augustine said.
At the ceremony, Augustine was officially promoted to lieutenant.
Also honored were two officers from the Fayetteville Police Department, who helped save Lt. Augustine.