Every year, the Carnegie Hero Fund Commission distributes individually-struck, bronze medals to award recipients or their families with the hope that they will serve as a lasting reminder of the hero’s legacy — passed down generations as a cherished heirloom. Sometimes, however, medals find their way back to us. These are the stories of Carnegie heroes whose Carnegie Medals are displayed in the Hero Fund’s offices in Pittsburgh. The bronze medal of Jeff Lambert tells the harrowing story of how he helped save a man from suffocation in 1945.
Jeff Lambert
At around 4:30 p.m. on Jan. 13, 1945, in Crane, Texas, six men, including 24-year-old Lambert and fellow Carnegie Hero J. Wesley Jones, 56, entered an oil well with noticeable levels of hydrogen-sulfide gas inside. After they entered the cellar for two to three minutes, they exited, and were told to wait for gas masks, but fellow worker Cleveland J. Ault became impatient and reentered the cellar.
Within two minutes, Ault was overcome by the gas and unconscious. Lambert and Jones entered the cellar without hesitation to save Ault. They avoided taking deep breaths while inside as Jones grabbed Ault’s head and Lambert helped to raise him up. They tied a rope around him and called up to men outside the cellar to pull him up. As they helped to get him out, both men felt dizzy and Lambert was eventually overcome by the gas. Fearing he might be dead, a man entered the well with a gas mask on and was able to pull him out. Jones made it out on his own by crawling and Lambert was then revived. All four men who entered made it out with their lives.
A newspaper clipping that was included with the medal, which was published around the time he was awarded, details Lambert’s heroic efforts in tandem with Jones.
“Jeff Lambert of Corona and J. Wesley Jones of Texas, are named to receive the Bronze Medal by the Carnegie Hero Fund Commission for rescuing Cleveland J. Ault, who had been overcome by hydrogen-sulphide gas in the cellar of [an] oil well.” The article went on to say that the two rescuers were also overcome, but recovered. “Lambert has said so little about the incident that his aunt, Mrs. Roy Cheaney of Corona, knew no details of the accident when first told that Lambert had been awarded the medal for heroism.”
Lambert’s Carnegie Medal was donated to the Hero Fund by his grandson, Joe Martin of Round Rock, Texas.
“[The medal] has passed to me after my mom’s passing in November 2020. I do not believe I have any family that would like to have this, and returning it to you … is preferable to any alternative,” Martin wrote to the Hero Fund.