Medals for Bravery.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 20, 23 January 1914, Page 5

Medals for Bravery.

CARNEGIE HERO FUND. MORE THAN 700 AWARDS. Since Andrew Carnegie established a fund of 6,000,000 dollars to provide rewards for valorous deeds in the saving of human life, more than 700 persons have been honored by the Hero Fund Commission. Heroes and heroines—any number of them—have swum their way to medals, rescuing fellow creatures from what would have been watery graves. They have gone into burning buildings by scores to drag forth human beings that otherwise would have been victims of he flames. Thrilling rescues by the dozen have been made where trains, moving at a frightful pace, were about to crush out lives, helpless on crossing or trestle. Explosions, cave-ins, runaways—all these* have figured time and time again in real life dramas in which the final has been the bestowal of a Carnegie medal. Yet there are Carnegie medal winners who have gone out of the beaten paths.

A BRAVE GSRL.

It was at Porter’s Lake, Penn., that Lucy E. Ernst, 20 years of age, saved Harry E. Schoenhut, aged 16, from death from snake hite. Miss Ernst, though having a fever blister on her lip, repeatedly sucked the venom from a rattlesnake bite on Schoenhut’s shoulder. Porter’s Lake is in the wildest part of Pike County, where the bear, the deer, the black bass, the pickerel, and the rattlesnake hold dominion. Miss Ernst and young Schoenhut, who were staying in the vicinity, started out one bright July day to inspect a pheasant’s nest. Ploughing through the brush, Schoenhut stopped beside a fallen birch and reached down for a stick. From the leaves there came a shrill, singing sound. Then came a quick rush of some sinuous thing,.a darting through the air, and Schoenhut straightened up with the cry:

“A rattler’s got me! He’s struck me on the shoulder.”

The girl’s face grew deadly pde as the man spoke, but she did not lose her presence of mind or her courage. Without a word, she grabbed the knife which the young man had dropped, and before he realised what she was doing, she had cut away his sleeve and had pressed her lips to the two small black dots in the arm that showed where the rattler’s fangs had struck.

The youth tried to push her away, but Miss Ernst stopped further remonstrance by grasping him by the throat. She knew she had a fever blister on her lip, and she knew also that if the one who sucks the twin punctures through which the snake sends death has a broken tooth or an abrasion of any kind in the mouth or on the lips, it is as though the snake had thrust its fangs there. But she did not hesitate.

Rescuers found the two practically unconscious. For a week the girl lav silent and still. There had been

enough of the venom in the man’s veins to bring him to tli portals of death. Through the little blister on the girl’s lips enough poison had entered to bring her near to the door of death, too.

For he'ji act Miss Ernst received a silver medal.

CATcmr.sc a falling mam

Then there was' the medal for John M. Delo, wlio tried to catch a fellow workman in his fall from an electric light pole, and who was himself badly injured as a result. Delo, a 27-year-old electrician, and Roy Vingling, aged 21, lineman, were working together on a job in Oil City, Penn., when Delo glanced up in time in see his companion, working at the top of a pole, stiffen from a shock received on the wires. Delo started to climb the pole in going to the rescue, when to his horror ho saw Tingling start to fall. The body was coming straight toward him. He could have dodged out of the way, hut his only thoughts were of the terrible fall his fellow workman was about to receive. He reached out bis arms, cud Tingling crashed into them, the two being knocked to the ground. The force of Yingling’s fall had been broken, and he survived. Delo survived, too, but for weeks lie lay ill from a fractured skull. The commission recognised the act with a bronze medal and 500 dollors to reimburse for pecuniary loss sustained on account of injuries.

A BULL AND A PENKNSFE.

What do you think of fighting off an enraged bull with no other weapon than a pocket knfe Yet that was just what Clifford \ . Graves, a Versailles (Ky.) farmer, did one morning. Graves was attracted to his barnyard by cries to find Merritt L. Brown, a negro neighbor, being trampled and butted on the ground by an angry bull.

Graves looked about him for some

weapon with which he might combat the animal, which was holding a human being helpless beneath its fury. Before he would have time to rush back to the house for a gun it would be too late. The negro was callingout piteously. Reaching In his pocket, Graves found an ordinary pocket knife, and with it, unmindful of the danger that would ba transferred to

himself, slashed at the angered bull

The animal diverted its wrath toward the interfering Kentuckian, who slashed at the animal, only to be knocked down and severely butted. Frantically he stabbed, each time bringing forth spurts of blood but the knife was a weak weapon at best. Graves was beginning to fear that he would not be able to survive the torture much longer. He was no longer able to make use of the knife. He saw everything turning black.

At the critical moment, G revues’s huge dog dashed on the scene, attacking the Jfeull with such ferocity that it was chased away. Both men were saved, but Graves suffered from a fractured rib and bruises all over his body.

For his heroism the Kentuckian received a bronze medal and 700 dollars to be applied to the liquidation of his debts.

RESCUING A MAD WOMAN.

Sticking his fingers and the toes of his shoes into the meshes of a wire lattice screen, enclosing the porches of a hospital, Thomas W. Moran climbed a distance of 42 feet and carried on a struggle with an insane woman in order to save her from a fatal fall. The incident occurred in Pittsburg. Moran, a contractor, 42 years of age, was going home from work one evening when he say a woman trying to make her escape from one of the top-storey windows. Moran realised that he must act quickly, and, fearing that the woman would com dashing to the ground any instant. he climbed on the wire inclosing the hospital porches, determined to make a rescue. The man reached the woman as she stood on a two-inch ledge of the screen, 42 feet above the ground, throwing his arm about her waist be got behind her to keep her from falling, holding her there for 20 minutes, during which time she struggled desperately to free herself. Feeling himself growing weaker and weaker from the struggle, Moran began shouting for help. Help came when firemen dropped a noosed rope from the roof. Moran fastened the rope about the woman, and she was hoisted and taken into the building. The rope was again ] lowered, and Moran tied it about himself and was let down to the

ground. The hero received a bronze medal and 1000 dollars towards liquidating a mortgage on his property.