In its first announcement of 2023, the Carnegie Hero Fund is honored to recognize 15 civilians who risked serious injury or death to save others, including four passersby who entered unfamiliar burning homes to save their occupants, a man who was shot and paralyzed from the waist-down while attempting to save a store clerk from an armed assailant, and a father who drowned saving his toddler.
Each individual will receive the Carnegie Medal, North America’s highest honor for civilian heroism.
Among those saved by this quarter’s Medal recipients were four children, a 61-year-old man who was trapped in his wheelchair in the basement apartment of a burning building, a 97-year-old woman who could not unlock her front door to escape flames in her burning home, and a room full of senior citizen churchgoers attending a potluck where a man opened fire.
The Carnegie Medal is given throughout the U.S. and Canada to those who enter extreme danger while saving or attempting to save the lives of others. With this announcement, the Carnegie Medal has been awarded to 10,355 individuals since the inception of the Pittsburgh-based Fund in 1904.
Each of the recipients or their survivors will receive a financial grant. Throughout the 119 years since the Fund was established by industrialist-philanthropist Andrew Carnegie, more than $44 million has been given in one-time grants, scholarship aid, death benefits, and continuing assistance.
The awardees are:
Terrance A. Dea, deceased, Louisville, Tennessee
Christopher K. Burkett, deceased, Forsyth, Georgia
Emilyn Golden, West Vancouver, British Columbia
Gabriel Lucas Gardner, deceased, Spokane Valley, Washington
Kevin Conklin, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania
Roberto Y. Longoria, deceased, Phoenix
James W. Musgrove, Jr., Birmingham, Alabama
Chad W. Chichester, Midland, Michigan
Derek Winemiller, Kansas City, Missouri
Paul Galotti, Easthampton, Massachusetts
Nicholas L. Bostic, Lafayette, Indiana
Zachary Sjosward, Clifton, New Jersey
Kortnie Balls, Pocatello, Idaho
Jose M. Pichardo, Nashua, New Hampshire
Daniel Franz, Mahopac, New York
To nominate someone for the Carnegie Medal, complete a nomination form online or write to the Carnegie Hero Fund Commission, 436 Seventh Ave., Suite 1101, Pittsburgh, PA 15219. More information on the Carnegie Medal and the history of the Carnegie Hero Fund Commission can be found at carnegiehero.org. Follow us on Facebook and Twitter.