In its third announcement of 2021, the Carnegie Hero Fund is proud to recognize 18 civilians who risked their lives for others. Each will receive the Carnegie Medal, North America’s highest honor for civilian heroism, according to the Carnegie website.
Among those to be awarded this quarter is Sheriff’s Deputy John Miner, 39, of Phillipsburg, Kansas.
He pulled off a rural highway in Long Island, Kansas, to offer aid to two families that had pulled their pickup trucks to the side of the road after one of them had engine issues on Nov. 4, 2020.
A tractor trailer driving on the highway hit the police vehicle and a trailer, rupturing one of the semi-truck’s fuel tanks. Diesel fuel was sprayed onto one of the pickups and flames erupted on its passenger side. After being informed that there were children in the backseat of the truck, Miner ran to the passenger side and opened the rear door. He quickly unlatched 4-year-old Ella Rae L. Sorensen-Wilkens from her car seat, lifted her from the seat and brought her to her father.
Miner then ran back to the vehicle and entered the burning vehicle from the same side to reach 2-year-old Emric C. Wilkens in a car seat behind the driver’s seat. Unable to unlatch the harness, Miner used a pocketknife to cut the straps of the car seat and freed Emric. As flames spread and ignited Miner’s pant leg, Miner dropped Emric to the ground, where his father retrieved him and took him to safety. Ella and Emric were not injured. Miner suffered second- and third-degree burns to his leg that required skin-grafting surgery. He ultimately recovered.
The Carnegie Medal is given throughout the U.S. and Canada to those who enter extreme danger while saving or attempting to save the lives of others. With this announcement, a total of 10,256 Carnegie Medals have been awarded since the Pittsburgh-based Fund’s inception in 1904. Commission Chair Mark Laskow said each of the awardees or their survivors will also receive a financial grant. Throughout the more than 117 years since the Fund was established by industrialist-philanthropist Andrew Carnegie, more than $43 million has been given in one-time grants, scholarship aid, death benefits, and continuing assistance.