Michael Joseph Kohut, 31, carpenter, helped to save Louis T. O’Neill, 29, lieutenant-pilot, U. S. Coast Guard, from burning, St. Mary’s City, Maryland, March 17, 1947. The motor of an airplane in which O’Neill was flying caught fire and stopped, and he made an emergency landing in a field. The undercarriage was broken, and the airplane rested upright on the fuselage. Dense smoke rose from the motor in front of the cockpit. Kohut and another man, who was in the U. S. Navy, ran to the airplane and standing on one of the wings tried to open the movable section of a canopy over the cockpit, but it was tightly jammed. Kohut then got astride the end of the canopy, and he and the other man jerked it open, Kohut falling to the ground. Again stepping onto the wing, he and the other man took hold of O’Neill, who had sustained severe injuries to one arm and hand and who suffered from shock, and pulled him from the cockpit. They carried O’Neill 70 feet from the airplane. As Kohut, intending to get a first-aid kit from the cockpit, returned to within 35 feet of the airplane, flames 12 to 20 feet high were rising from it. He rejoined the others. O’Neill recovered. None of the men sustained any burns. 41021-3538
41021 – 3538
41021-3538