Three Carnegie heroes will be honored for a July 29, 2019, heroic water rescue in Mosquito Creek Lake near Cortland, Ohio. A 12-year-old boy was with five other children playing in the manmade reservoir when he chased a soccer ball into deeper water and struggled to stay afloat. Christine L. Beheler, 41, a stay-at-home mom of Niles, Ohio, who had brought the children to the lake that day, entered the water and swam about 150 feet to the boy, who was panicking. He submerged Beheler as 43-year-old police sergeant Mark A. Krempasky, of Warren, Ohio, and 49-year-old teacher Melinda J. Wilms, of Salem, Ohio, responded. Krempasky reached Beheler, who was unresponsive, towed her back into wadable water where others assisted in getting her to the beach. Wilms, who had a pool noodle, reached one end of it to the boy, who held on while she swam back to the beach towing him. Beheler could not be revived, and will receive the Carnegie Medal posthumously.
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