Overheard: Impulse 67

For a guy like me — I was a drug addict living under a bridge for part of my 20s before I got my life back together — so for a guy like me that’s huge. Recognition confirms for me that I made the right decisions, and I am trying to live a good life … that I’m on the right path. — Jean-Paul LaPierre, Carnegie Medal awardee #10244

Sometimes you have to go and do … I’m a mom and we want to save everybody. You don’t even think. You just go and do. — Hiedi Johnston, Carnegie Medal awardee #10239

John Miner is quite a humble man and not used to a lot of attention and honestly believes he was just doing his job. — Sheriff of Deputy John Miner, Carnegie Medal awardee #10256

If I didn’t stop where there was somebody alive in a car engulfed in flames, I would have been haunted by that. I had to try. I don’t think of myself as a hero. I was just trying to help another person. I had to do something. — Jeffrey Johnson, Carnegie Medal awardee #10191

I am very grateful that I was there at the right time. I have known Ed pretty much my whole life, and he has always been great to my family. It is a blessing to know that this event turned out the way it did. — Calvin Parham, Carnegie Medal awardee #10186, referring to the man he saved from a burning building.

It feels good knowing that I have done something to affect a life. I was doing what I was taught to do. — Phillip H. DiLuca, Carnegie Medal awardee #10104

We ain’t losing no soldiers on my watch! — Antonio Morgan, Carnegie Medal awardee #10228

It hurts, and the only thing I will be able to tell my son is that he was a hero. — fiancée of Gabriel Cedrik Saechao, Carnegie Medal awardee #10251

I couldn’t get my Foodland uniform wet, so I took everything off and went in with the boxers. — Ryan Scott McIlwain, Carnegie Medal awardee #10087