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County recipients of the Carnegie Medal, established in 1904

SALEM — Carnegie Hero Melinda Wilms joined a select list as a recent Carnegie Medal recipient for saving a 12-year-old boy from drowning in 2019, but she’s not alone.

Wilms is one of six Salem residents to receive the award since its inception in 1904 and one of several recipients from Columbiana County and the local area.

Pittsburgh philanthropist Andrew Carnegie established the award after the Harwick mining disaster near Pittsburgh, awarding the first two medals posthumously to two men who lost their lives attempting a rescue after the mine explosion.

According to the website at carnegiehero.org, which includes the list and stories of all the heroes, the requirements for consideration now are the same as they were when Carnegie started the Carnegie Hero Fund Commission.

“The candidate for an award must be a civilian who voluntarily risks his or her life to an extraordinary degree while saving or attempting to save the life of another person. The rescuer must have no full measure of responsibility for the safety of the victim,” the website said.

Carnegie Hero Fund Commission President and Secretary Eric Zahren said heroes make a moral choice, putting their own lives on the line to save a stranger. Besides awarding medals, the commission also provides monetary scholarships, awards and assistance. For Carnegie, he said “it was important to him. He didn’t want heroes or their dependents to suffer because of that choice.”

More than 10,000 medals have been awarded in over a century and there’s still Carnegie involvement, with Carnegie’s great-granddaughter Linda Hills serving on the board.

Throughout the past century plus, heroes from the area have joined the roll.

William S. Patterson, a 31-year-old crane operator, became the first Salem resident to receive the honor.

On Feb. 1, 1913, he saved 19-year-old Lynn Davis, a machinist’s helper, from suffocation in Salem after helping rescue him from a steel storage tank through a small manhole at the top. Davis had gone into the tank with a gallon of gasoline to clean it and apparently was overcome by the fumes. His brother had been helping him and withdrew the ladder and returned to find him unconscious and called for help. Patterson responded, went inside the tank and raised Davis up so he could be pulled through the hole and revived, even while he himself was getting sick from the fumes. He also survived.

On Feb. 5, 1929, three Salem men attempted to rescue two cupola tenders from suffocation in a Salem foundry. For their efforts, core maker Noble Harry Neff, 23, cupola tender John Alfred Sanders, 48, and molder Charles Henry Shears, 44, all received the Carnegie Medal.

They were attempting to save 49-year-old Alexander Barsan, a cupola tender who was overcome by carbon monoxide while inside the cupola, and Petru Acsinte, 47, another cupola tender who fell inside the cupola and was also overcome. All three rescuers felt the effects from the fumes as they worked to get Barsan and Acsinte out of the cupola using rope. Barsan and Acsinte both died. Neff was limp and dazed after being pulled out but recovered in an hour or two. Both Sanders and Shears became unconscious as they were pulled out, but were revived. Shears was disabled for 11 weeks after the incident and required at least six months to recover.

The most recent Carnegie Hero in Salem before Wilms was Peter N. Gonatas, 47, a painter who saved laborer Paul M. Sweeney, 26, and four others from suffocation after they entered a manhole where liquid sewage leaked in from a pipe on Aug. 27, 1956.

Sweeney had gone into the manhole and opened the control valve on the pipe carrying the liquid sewage that had been treated at a sewage disposal plant and was overcome by an unidentified gas as the liquid leaked into the manhole from the pipe. Donald Riley entered the manhole thinking Sweeney was injured and was also overcome, falling into the rising sewage. Ivan Lowe, William Taylor and Ernest Taylor also entered the manhole, unaware of the gas, and lost consciousness, falling to the bottom. Gonatas took a rope and descended into the manhole on a ladder. He wasn’t aware the flow of sewage had been shut off at the plant and was standing in 2 feet of sewage, tying the rope first around William Taylor, then each of the others as they were hoisted up by those on the outside. Gonatas even held up Riley and Sweeney so their faces were out of the sewage. All five men were hospitalized, but Gonatas suffered no ill effects being inside the manhole for 10 minutes. All recovered.

According to the heroes database, the first honoree from Columbiana County was Francis C. Skinner, 32, of Salineville, a stationary engineer who died attempting to rescue two men from a mine after an explosion. The two men, Wesley J. Wright, 48, and John W. Rowe, 36, were disabled by the blast so Skinner, with others, was lowered 180 feet down a shaft when the carriage stuck and ropes had to be used to get to the bottom another 20 feet away. Wright was being carried to the shaft when a piece of timber fell and struck Skinner on the head, killing him instantly.

Other heroes from the area include:

— Karen K. Edwards, 13 at the time, of Leetonia, saved truck driver Eugene Taylor from drowning in a pool in Duncansville, Pa. on June 17, 1972 when he jumped in trying to rescue his 10-year-old son. She saved both the boy and his father, pulling both to safety one at a time.

— William C. Diville, 50, a Lisbon blacksmith, attempted to save chauffeur Earl H. Torrance, 28, from a burning garage in Lisbon on Nov. 25, 1911 as Torrance lay unconscious with his clothes burning close to five steel tanks containing 250 gallons of gasoline. Diville managed to drag Torrance out, but Torrance died a few minutes later. Diville wasn’t injured.

— Gerald L. Barcus, 37, an off-duty fire lieutenant at the time, and Joseph Braslawsce, 37, a plumber, both of East Liverpool, helped rescue Patrick L. Burcham and William R. Howell Jr. from a burning pickup truck that overturned on its side and caught fire from leaking gasoline on June 16, 1979. They pulled both men from the burning vehicle. Burcham recovered, but Howell died.

— Robert F.M. Cornman, 36, a towboat deckhand, and Charles Lee Montgomery, 41, a towboat pilot, both of East Liverpool, helped save George A. Zappone and John A. Thomas Sr. from drowning in Industry, Pa. after their towboat was swept away by a swift current through an open gate of a dam at night on Jan. 9, 2005. Zappone and Thomas survived, while four other men aboard their boat died.

— Thomas L. Edgell, a 32-year-old policeman from East Liverpool, saved 4-year-old Richard D. Gooding from possible suffocation on Dec. 27, 1978 when a fire from the house next door caught his family’s home on fire. Edgell crawled through dense smoke to the bedroom where flames had burned through one wall, found the child and carried him out of the house.

— Herbert S. Hull, 13, a New Waterford schoolboy, saved 8-year-old Marvin P. Aeschbacher, from drowning in New Waterford on June 4, 1962 when he and two other children fell from a platform in a lake into deep water. Hull jumped in to help after Marvin’s aunt swam to the children and was being submerged as they clung to her neck and back. All survived.

— Bryan L. Jarrard, 13, of Wellsville saved 7-year-old Michael E. Oates from drowning, in Wellsville on Sept. 29, 1983 after Michael, a non-swimmer, was swinging from a rope over the Ohio River and lost his grip, falling into the water. Jarrard swam to the boy and maneuvered, swimming and pushing him to the bank.

— Alverna M. McConnell, 17, and Thomas Jefferson Tackett, 22, both of East Liverpool, were involved in the same incident trying to save Irene Kibble from drowning in the Ohio River on June 27, 1926. McConnell was trying to save Kibble when McConnell ended up submerged, then Tackett swam to them, forcibly separated them and managed to push McConnell toward the bank. Tackett drowned attempting to save Kibble, who was later rescued by another swimmer. McConnell survived.

— Richard Lee Payne, 21, of East Liverpool, saved James E. Stewart, 39, from drowning in the Ohio River in East Liverpool on Nov. 3, 1969. He heard Stewart calling for help as he floated downstream, swam to him and towed him 100 feet to wadable water. Firemen arrived and helped take Stewart to the bank. Both survived.

— Linda S. Robb, 51, of Berlin Center, rescued fellow teacher Daniel Kemats and a classroom of sixth graders at McKinley Elementary in Lisbon from assault on March 23, 2002 when a 12-year-old student produced a loaded 9-mm handgun and demanded they lie on the floor. Robb, whose classroom was across the hall, was made aware of the situation and intervened, talking to the student, asking him to join her in the hallway and disarming him after she hugged him. He also surrendered an extra magazine to her, was taken to the office and then taken into custody by police.

— Terry A. Laughlin, 15, of Alliance, helped to save 23-year-old Malcolm P. Carr from drowning at a lake in Deerfield on June 5, 1967 after he experienced difficulty in deep water and called for help. When she tried to help him, both ended up submerged, but then she was able to tow him toward the bank where another girl helped tow him the rest of the way to a third girl who helped get him on the bank. He was revived.

mgreier@salemnews.net

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