The city of Yonkers, New York, recently honored two-time Carnegie Medal recipient John J. O’Neill Sr. with the dedication of a memorial plaque and the establishment of a scholarship bearing his name.
The John James O’Neill Sr. Scholarship will benefit employees of the Yonkers Department of Public Works, where O’Neill worked as a road maintenance man when he performed two separate rescues from the Hudson River. Yonkers Mayor Mike Spano announced the honors as a way to preserve O’Neill’s legacy of courage, service, and selflessness for future generations.
O’Neill is one of only six people in the Hero Fund’s history to receive the Carnegie Medal twice for separate acts of heroism. Both of his medals recognized rescues from drowning at the Yonkers City Pier, performed approximately two and a half years apart despite a heart condition for which doctors had advised him to avoid strenuous activity.
On May 5, 1954, O’Neill, then 46, was working near the pier when 41-year-old Anna Schulz fell into the Hudson River. He ran approximately 250 feet to the pier, climbed over a railing, and moved along a ledge above the water. Although another man warned him against entering the river because of his health, O’Neill removed his shoes and jumped 14 feet into the water.
He swam to Schulz, who had become submerged, brought her to the surface, and towed her to a pier support where others had lowered a ladder. Both were treated at a hospital for shock and exposure and recovered.
O’Neill returned to the same river under even harsher conditions on the night of Dec. 29, 1956, after 62-year-old Angelina DePole fell from the pier.
Still under medical instructions to avoid exertion, O’Neill hurried to the river wall and jumped fully clothed into the near-freezing water. He swam through choppy waves to DePole and towed her toward a suspended ladder against the wall. While he held both the ladder and DePole, waves repeatedly drove his head against the wall and ice formed on his face and clothing.
O’Neill remained in the water until others could secure a rope around DePole and lift her to safety. His heart condition was temporarily aggravated by the rescue, and he spent a week in the hospital followed by two months recovering at home.
Decades later, O’Neill’s family began learning more about the full circumstances of the two rescues. Several of his descendants visited the Carnegie Hero Fund’s Pittsburgh offices in 2023, where they examined the original investigative records documenting his actions.
The visit helped fill gaps in the family’s understanding of O’Neill’s life, his son Michael said at the time. Family members also attended the Hero Fund’s annual meeting, where commissioners recognized O’Neill’s exceptional place in the organization’s history.
The new memorial plaque and scholarship now extend that recognition to the city where O’Neill lived, worked, and twice entered the Hudson River for strangers in danger.
Through the scholarship, his name will remain connected not only to the Yonkers Department of Public Works, but also to the public-service employees who follow him.
