In its second announcement of 2022, the Carnegie Hero Fund is proud to recognize 16 civilians who risked their lives to save others, including a retired NFL defensive end who entered a burning semi-truck to save its driver, a man who removed his prosthetic lower leg before entering 50-degree water to pull a man from a submerging SUV, and a business owner who drowned attempting to save a woman in what witnesses described as impossible conditions.
Each of these 16 individuals will receive the Carnegie Medal, North America’s highest honor for civilian heroism.
Among those saved by this quarter’s awardees were a 51-year-old mother whose 27-year-old son was badly burned rescuing her from her burning home, a motorist in distress who remained in his vehicle stuck on a railroad track with a train approaching, and two children who, in two separate acts, struggled to stay afloat in rough water.
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 10,307 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 118 years since the Fund was established by industrialist-philanthropist Andrew Carnegie, almost $44 million has been given in one-time grants, scholarship aid, death benefits, and continuing assistance.
The awardees are:
Jacob M. Smith, Tulalip, Washington
William Werts, Jr., New Castle, Delaware
Darnell J. Wilson, Rochester, New York
Katelynn Saengdala, Kitchener, Ontario
Wyatt Tucker Shields, Atlanta
Jason R. Milks, Astoria, Oregon
Andrew Parent, Oneida, New York
Roger Combs, Oneida, New York
Anthony Stephen Capuano, Jersey City, New Jersey
Antonio Raul Rivera, Bolingbrook, Illinois
Lewis A. Medina, Aurora, Illinois
Anthony Peterkin, Fayetteville, North Carolina
Jaden DeShawn Peterkin, Fayetteville, North Carolina
Ross C. Johnson, Jacksonville, Florida
Adam Layman Thomas, deceased, Louisville, Kentucky
Brandon Bair, St. Anthony, Idaho
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.
Jacob M. Smith
On May 22, 2019, Jacob M. Smith, a 27-year-old real estate professional, escaped his burning Arlington, Washington, home through a second-floor bedroom window. After reaching safety, he learned that his 51-year-old mother, Wendy Smith, was still inside the home. Smith reentered the house through the garage, where he was forced to the floor due to heavy smoke and blistering heat. Crawling, he moved toward the stairs and found Wendy unconscious in a coat closet. Smith entered the closet, held Wendy under her arms, and stood, but was burned by nearby flames. He went back to his hands and knees and moving backward toward the garage, he dragged Wendy with him. At the garage, another man helped move Wendy to the yard. Wendy was hospitalized for one month with serious burns to the left side of her body and her airway. Smith was hospitalized one week for smoke inhalation and second-degree burns to his nose, ears, arms, and hands. He also suffered a corneal abrasion. He recovered.
William Werts, Jr.
William Werts, Jr., 56, of New Castle, Delaware, a maintenance worker for a Wilmington, Delaware, apartment complex, rushed to the scene of a Nov. 25, 2020, fire in a second-story unit as intense flames issued out the front windows. Bystanders told Werts that a 58-year-old woman remained inside, and Werts rushed to the front door of the unit, where he was immediately repelled by intense smoke. As he retreated outside for air, debris fell on him. Werts then ran to the back of the building and ascended a fire escape, entering the unit’s kitchen through an open door. There he crawled with a fire extinguisher toward a bedroom, calling for the woman, who responded that she could not move to him. As he continued toward the bedroom, the woman stopped answering. At the door to the bedroom, Werts sprayed the extinguisher at flames in the door frame, but conditions worsened and smoke intensified. Werts backed toward the door; another man who had entered the kitchen assisted Werts to safety. Firefighters extinguished the fire; the woman did not survive. Werts sustained an inhalation injury and a burn on his head. He was hospitalized overnight and recovered.
Darnell J. Wilson
Restaurant owner Evangela Stanley, 53, was getting ready to lock her Rochester, New York, restaurant on the night of Dec. 23, 2019, when a 27-year-old gunman rushed into the business. Stanley fled and repeatedly screamed for her friend, Darnell J. Wilson, a 32-year-old fast food clerk, who was still inside the restaurant. Wilson saw Stanley run past him and turned to confront the assailant who was followingher. Wilson punched, kicked, and pushed the assailant back toward the front door, where the assailant stumbled onto his back and twice shot the .40-caliber pistol he was holding. During the struggle, Wilson pushed the assailant through a plate glass window to the outside sidewalk. Wilson followed and was joined by a worker from the back of the restaurant who had heard the struggle and rushed out the front door to help. Wilson picked up the gun from the sidewalk, and the two men chased, punched, and beat the assailant until he fled the scene. The assailant was arrested later and charged with robbery and possessing the gun. Stanley was not injured. Wilson suffered lacerations from the broken window and was treated at the hospital.
Katelynn Saengdala
When a 39-year-old, Kitchener, Ontario, man and his 12-year-old daughter struggled on Aug. 27, 2020, in Lake Erie off of Port Colborne, Ontario, Katelynn Saengdala, a 32-year-old manufacturing worker of Kitchener, immediately responded, despite being in recovery from a spinal fracture suffered in a car accident one month earlier. A rip current had carried the pair away from shore and Saengdala swam after them, reaching them at a point about 50 feet from shore. There the father, Jeremy D. Figueroa, struggled to stay afloat while keeping daughter Laila M. Zorychta from submerging. Saengdala grasped each of them by one arm and kicked to move them toward shore. Towing both of them was taxing and at a point about halfway to shore, where water was still more than 6 feet deep, Saengdala struggled to keep going. She was nearly exhausted. A man with a child’s flotation toy arrived and aided Figueroa and Laila the remaining distance to shore. Saengdala exited the water on her own. Figueroa had swallowed water, was nearly exhausted and short of breath, and was taken by ambulance to the hospital. Laila was checked at the scene by medics but did not need further treatment. Saengdala suffered back pain for the following month after the incident, but she recovered.
Wyatt Tucker Shields
A man harassed Kevin Alkinburg, 24, who was walking on a public street with his female partner, 23, in Washington, District of Columbia, July 31, 2021. The man demanded the couple kiss and followed them for about 50 feet, eventually aiming a fully loaded revolver at Alkinburg’s midsection. A 22-year-old law firm intern, Wyatt Tucker Shields, of Atlanta, saw the assailant aim the gun at Alkinburg and ran toward the assailant, tackling him to the ground as the gun discharged. The gun clattered away and was removed from the assailant’s reach. Alkinburg and Shields held the assailant to the ground until police arrived. Shields chipped some teeth and cut his lip in the altercation, and he lost hearing in his left ear for a month from the gunshot, but he recovered. The assailant was arrested, pled guilty to several related crimes, and was sentenced to about a year in prison.
Jason R. Milks
A 35-year-old woman was swimming on May 26, 2020, in the 50-degree Pacific Ocean off of Seaside, Oregon, with a kickboard when she was pulled away from shore and shouted for help. Clam-digging nearby, Jason R. Milks, 40, responded. He ran 300 feet down the beach, removed his chest-high waders and other outer clothing, grabbed another kickboard and entered the water. Milks swam 450 feet to the woman, and instructed her to balance her chest on her kickboard and grab his ankles. Milks released his kickboard, and it floated away. He swam toward shore towing the woman, but every time a wave crashed over them, he stood upright in the water and held to the woman so they would not get separated, before he began swimming again. The woman was taken to the hospital and treated for hypothermia; she recovered. Milks was cold and nearly exhausted.
Andrew Parent and Roger Combs
A 72-year-old man was driving a pickup truck on June 21, 2021, when it left a Westmoreland, New York, highway, struck a utility pole, overturned onto its roof, and came to rest with the top portion of the utility pole on its undercarriage. A fire broke out engulfing the truck’s undercarriage and a downed electrical wire along the grass shoulder sparked and smoldered. A passing motorist in a tow truck, Andrew Parent, 65, business owner, found Jack H. Pylman, whose upper body was severely burned, screaming for help at the driver’s window, where his lower body was pinned inside the truck. The fire was intense. Parent stepped over the wire and approached the truck but, despite his best efforts, was unable to pull Pylman free or put out the fire with extinguishers. As Parent called for help from bystanders, Roger Combs, a 74-year-old retired information technology specialist, approached the truck despite popping sounds. He stepped over the wire, and, with Parent and Combs each grasping Pylman’s arms and hands, they pulled Pylman free and dragged him about 15 feet. Arriving medics tended to Pylman, who was taken to a hospital. He died one week later.
Anthony Stephen Capuano
A 68-year-old man remained in the driver’s seat of his car after it plunged into Newark Bay near Bayonne, New Jersey, on Nov. 10, 2020. As Joseph M. Kadian screamed that he didn’t know how to swim, Anthony Stephen Capuano, a 29-year-old aquatic program administrator, responded. Removing his prosthetic lower leg, Capuano climbed a fence, scrambled over large rocks at the water’s edge and entered the 50-degree water, swimming to the driver’s door of the car. With water up to Kadian’s waist, Capuano grasped Kadian under the arms and pulled him through the opened driver’s window, as water entered the passenger compartment, sinking the vehicle’s front end. Capuano positioned Kadian on his back and swam toward shore. By then, another man had entered the water and swam to them to assist Capuano. Other bystanders on the rock helped lift Kadian from the water. Capuano was nearly exhausted, dizzy, and cold after the rescue, but he recovered.
Antonio Raul Rivera
A 64-year-old man fled his home April 21, 2021, after his 26-year-old son stabbed him in the head. Collapsing in his Bolingbrook, Illinois, front yard, the man screamed for help. The assailant followed him and repeatedly stabbed at the man’s upper body as they struggled on the grass. Neighbor Antonio Raul Rivera, a 50-year-old nonprofit organization executive, responded. He rushed the assailant, grabbed his arm to prevent him from stabbing the man again, and tackled him to the ground. Rivera secured the assailant to the ground while another neighbor removed the knife from the scene and others applied first aid until police and other first-responders arrived. Arriving police took the assailant into custody. The man was hospitalized for about three weeks as he recovered from wounds to his head, neck, and back and the partial amputation of a finger.
Lewis A. Medina
Lewis A. Medina, a 60-year-old construction driver of Aurora, Illinois, was driving in Aurora on the night of Oct. 9, 2021, when he spotted a sports utility vehicle on a train track. Parking, he called 911 to report the vehicle, but shortly a train, traveling at 40 m.p.h., approached on the same track. Medina ran to the SUV and shouted for the driver to leave the vehicle, but the 72-year-old man was unresponsive. As the crossing alarms sounded and the gates at a nearby intersection descended, Medina pulled open the driver’s door, unbuckled the driver’s seat belt and, bear-hugging him, pulled him from the car. He fell to the track, and Medina tugged at his clothes to clear him from the rails before rolling him down a hill to safety. The train struck the SUV, throwing it about 1,000 feet away.
Anthony Peterkin and Jaden DeShawn Peterkin
A father-and-son team sustained injuries after removing an 88-year-old man who had collapsed in his burning Fayetteville, North Carolina, home on April 11, 2021. Russell D. Cox was lying on the floor of his kitchen after fire broke out at the rear of the home. Neighbors Anthony Peterkin, 52, a training technician, and his son, Jaden DeShawn Peterkin, a 17-year-old high school student, ran through the home’s attached garage to an interior door. From there, the older Peterkin proceeded to the home’s kitchen where flames engulfed the floor, ceiling, and walls. Crawling, Peterkin found Cox and dragged him toward the garage door where Jaden assisted. Peterkin and Jaden placed Cox on a small rug and dragged him from the home. Cox sustained smoke inhalation and serious burns to his legs and back; he died the next day. Peterkin was hospitalized for two days for smoke inhalation; he recovered. Jaden, who inhaled smoke and experienced an irritated throat, was examined at a hospital. He recovered.
Ross C. Johnson
A 13-year-old was carried 450 feet from shore by a rip current in the Atlantic Ocean off of Neptune Beach, Florida, on May 17, 2020. Rough conditions made it difficult for him to stay afloat. Nineteen-year-old college student, Ross C. Johnson of Jacksonville, Florida, was at the beach and, upon seeing the boy, entered the water despite 4-foot waves. He swam to the boy, grasped his forearm and towed him back toward shore, but the boy repeatedly submerged him in an effort to keep himself above the surface of the water. Johnson repositioned the boy, to hold him across the chest and then back-stroked toward the beach. At about 75 feet from shore, Johnson was nearly exhausted and struggled with keeping them both above the water’s surface, but two men took the boy from Johnson and brought him to the beach.
Adam Layman Thomas, deceased
From a bicycle trail along a Louisville, Kentucky, road, a 36-year-old woman climbed over a railing and entered the swollen, swift-flowing Ohio River on Jan. 13. As the woman swam in the 41-degree water away from the near bank, multiple bystanders congregated on the trail. Adam Layman Thomas, a 34-year-old business owner of Louisville, who stopped his vehicle on the road, went to confer with them. Removing his outer clothing, Thomas also climbed over the railing and entered the river. As he swam toward the woman, she continued moving downstream. Shortly, Thomas struggled and ultimately submerged. The woman, who reached the vicinity of an island before witnesses lost sight of her, has yet to be located and is presumed dead. Nearly three months later, authorities recovered Thomas from the river about 100 miles from the scene. He had drowned.
Brandon Bair
Steven W. Jenson, 25, remained pinned and severely injured in the driver’s seat of a semi-truck that, in a May 6, 2021, accident with a train in St. Anthony, Idaho, overturned onto its driver’s side and was propelled about a quarter-mile along the railroad tracks before coming to a stop. As fire burned at the truck’s front end by the front of the train and dark smoke issued, Jenson was unable to free himself. Among those who stopped at the scene, retired NFL defensive end Brandon Bair, 36, St. Anthony business owner, responded, hearing Jensen calling out. Entering to his waist through the truck’s broken-out rear windshield, Bair removed Jenson’s seat belt, pushed the steering wheel away from Jenson, and grasped him under the arms. As Jenson used his feet to push off, Bair withdrew from the truck, pulling Jenson with him until he was outside the truck. Bair aided Jenson off the tracks then, with help from another man, moved Jenson farther away as the fire grew to consume the truck. Jenson, who suffered burns to his legs and other injuries, was flown to a hospital and underwent treatment for about three weeks. Bair was not injured.