A police officer from the Killaloe area has been awarded the Carnegie Medal for Bravery.
Jared Moore is one of 17 men and women to be given the honor so far this year.
He is the only one from Canada.
The award honors courageous acts across North America. It is the highest recognition of civilian bravery and highlights individuals who display ‘extraordinary courage’, risking their own lives to save others.
Last February, Moore was off-duty when he rescued a husband and wife from drowning after a snowmobile had gone through an opening in the ice on Round Lake.
Moore and his mother were out walking on the thick part of the lake ice when they saw the snowmobile plunge into the water with a woman on it.
Moore ran to the scene and, standing on ice about three inches thick, helped the woman’s husband try to rescue her with a rope.
She was unable to grab it due to the onset of hypothermia.
The husband then jumped in and swam to the woman to bring her to the edge. Moore knelt down on the thin ice, pulling her out to safety. He then returned to the edge of the ice and pulled the husband out.
Moore and the other man were uninjured.
OPP spokesperson Bill Dickson told Moose FM of Moore’s courage under pressure.
“Normally when you do cold water rescues, you’re wearing a dry suit and usually we leave that to the rescue professionals, the firefighters, some of our members of our SAVE team (Snow-Vehicle, All Terrain Vehicle and Vessel Enforcement) They have cold water rescue. They’ve done this before. They know what to do. But not everyone does, even OPP members. So there was no way for him to know he too wouldn’t fall through the ice….”
Dickson went on to highlight how Moore used his ‘skills and his abilities’, while also balancing necessary caution.
“He did all the right things and this worked out for the best for everyone.”
Others receiving the Carnegie Award include a husband who intercepted a shark attacking his wife just off South Padre in the Gulf of Mexico. The man managed to punch the shark in the gills, thereby freeing his wife from the attack.
In another rescue, a Colorado man saved a woman and her infant son from a vehicle seconds before it became engulfed in flames.
