(Radio Iowa) – A retired Iowa Air National Guard member who became a symbol of the effort to save lives in the crash of United Flight 232 at the Sioux City Airport in 1989 has died. Colonel Dennis Nielsen of the 185th Air wing was caught in a photo carrying three-year-old Spencer Bailey from the plane wreckage following the crash. Gary Brown was Woodbury County’s Emergency Services Director at the time and was also a friend of Nielsen. “Denny was a very humble person. He did not enjoy the notoriety that came with that photograph,” Brown says. “But he also was respectful of the fact that his photograph was representing the hundreds and hundreds of emergency responders in the hundreds of people from the military and the 185th.”

Flight 232 Spirit of Siouxland Memorial featuring Colonel Dennis Nielsen

The picture by Sioux City Journal Photographer Gary Anderson later became the model for the Spirit of Siouxland Sculpture on the Sioux City riverfront. Sioux City’s response to the disaster was praised across the country. Brown says Nielsen was an early member of the local team that train for such emergencies. “Denny first joined with us in the disaster committee preparedness when it was first established back in the 80s. He was assigned there by Commander Dennis Swanstrom and he was an amazing ambassador for the 185th,” he says. Nielsen retired from the 185th Air Wing in 202 and moved to Raleigh North Carolina, where he died in September at the age of 76. Brown kept in touch with Nielsen.

“We’re gonna miss Denny, he’s an Iowa boy he was born in Shelby, Iowa on February of 1947,” Brown says. “And I’m going to miss him personally we just wish him a speedy journey.” The plane crashed and cartwheeled down the runway, but the effort of first responders helped save 184 of the 296 people on board the plane.