Saving lives is nothing new for Fire Fighters, police and EMTs -- and it?s nothing new for Letter Carriers either. That came through loud and clear when the National Association of Letter Carriers presented its Heroes of the Year awards at a recent luncheon in Washington, D.C.
Virtually all the honorees, led by National Hero of the Year David Heald of Kennebunk, Maine, saved peoples' lives, said union President William Young. In most cases, the lives saved were those of regular customers, or their children, along the Letter Carriers' routes. Heald's case was different.
Heald used his experience as a Navy veteran and "took command of a situation that was truly horrifying," Young explained. A 26-year-old motorcyclist, who was "going dangerously fast" and weaving in and out of traffic, crashed broadside into a car making a left turn. One of his legs "was severed about three inches below the hip.
"There was blood -- and more blood -- everywhere and the victim was screaming in pain. He didn?t reallize that his leg was cut off," Young said. Heald, of Branch 92, did.
He used his shirt to help stanch the bleeding and told bystanders he needed a tourniquet. Young said that "someone handed (Heald) a rubber bungee cord and this cool-thinking Letter Carrier wrapped it around the leg and twisted it down until the blood stopped spurting onto the pavement." An emergency crew arrived in 10 minutes and took the cyclist to the hospital. He survived, though Heald doubted he would.
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The other regional heroes acted similarly, as did the Carrier Alert award winner:
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* Willie Hayward, of Miami's South Florida Branch 1071, rushed into a burning apartment along his route this past Jan. 31 and saved two of his elderly customers, after calling 911. He banged on the door before Manuela Perez answered and Hayward pulled her outside. When she couldn't tell him if anyone else was inside, "he figured that, if she wasn't sure, her husband was probably still inside," Young said. Hayward crawled back in underneath the smoke, got the sleeping husband out of bed and dragged him out the door by his feet.
* Richard Bergonzi of Branch 458, the Western regional hero, rushed into a burning house in Moore, Okla., to rescue an 8-year-old child recovering from brain surgery. The family could not speak English well, but he got them away from the house and figured out that one woman repeating "smoke, smoke" meant someone else was still inside. Bergonzi raced in, "scooped up the youngster" from the floor "and carried him outside just as a large burst of black smoke billowed into his face."
* Richard Ortosky of Brook Park, Ohio, the Central Region hero, did not face a burning building -- just four menacing, burly, angry and mean-spirited half-Rottweiler, half-German Shepherd dogs threatening to attack two litttle girls. Such dog attacks on kids have been fatal before. The Cleveland Branch 40 carrier got the dogs away from the two 8-to-10-year-old kids by attracting them -- to himself. He distracted the dogs by shedding his coat. They tore it to pieces before the dog warden and police showed up.
* Paula Pieper, a 16-year-carrier of Branch 500 in Carlisle, Pa., also saved a life, but not by rushing into a burning building. She got the Carrier Alert award for noticing a regular customer, an 88-year-old man, had not collected his mail for two days last December. She did not know his family.
"But she figured out that a local business was run by his son," Young said. Pieper called there, and alerted the man's daughter-in-law -- who came over to find the man had a stroke and was laying on the kitchen floor, dehydrated.
Without the carrier's call, the man, who is now in a nursing home, would have died, the daughter-in-law said.
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NALC also gave awards to Juan Cordero, of Selma, Calif., as Humanitarian of the Year and to its Twin Cities branches for Branch Service: "Setting up a Letter Carrier booth at the Minnesota state fair for people to send greetings to U.S. troops" abroad. The booth at the State Fair "House of Labor" was operated by Branch 9 from Minneapolis and Branch 28 from St. Paul.
This article was written by Press Associates, Inc., news service. Used by permission.
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Saving lives is nothing new for Fire Fighters, police and EMTs — and it?s nothing new for Letter Carriers either. That came through loud and clear when the National Association of Letter Carriers presented its Heroes of the Year awards at a recent luncheon in Washington, D.C.
Virtually all the honorees, led by National Hero of the Year David Heald of Kennebunk, Maine, saved peoples’ lives, said union President William Young. In most cases, the lives saved were those of regular customers, or their children, along the Letter Carriers’ routes. Heald’s case was different.
Heald used his experience as a Navy veteran and “took command of a situation that was truly horrifying,” Young explained. A 26-year-old motorcyclist, who was “going dangerously fast” and weaving in and out of traffic, crashed broadside into a car making a left turn. One of his legs “was severed about three inches below the hip.
“There was blood — and more blood — everywhere and the victim was screaming in pain. He didn?t reallize that his leg was cut off,” Young said. Heald, of Branch 92, did.
He used his shirt to help stanch the bleeding and told bystanders he needed a tourniquet. Young said that “someone handed (Heald) a rubber bungee cord and this cool-thinking Letter Carrier wrapped it around the leg and twisted it down until the blood stopped spurting onto the pavement.” An emergency crew arrived in 10 minutes and took the cyclist to the hospital. He survived, though Heald doubted he would.
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The other regional heroes acted similarly, as did the Carrier Alert award winner:
online pharmacy atarax for sale no prescription
* Willie Hayward, of Miami’s South Florida Branch 1071, rushed into a burning apartment along his route this past Jan. 31 and saved two of his elderly customers, after calling 911. He banged on the door before Manuela Perez answered and Hayward pulled her outside. When she couldn’t tell him if anyone else was inside, “he figured that, if she wasn’t sure, her husband was probably still inside,” Young said. Hayward crawled back in underneath the smoke, got the sleeping husband out of bed and dragged him out the door by his feet.
* Richard Bergonzi of Branch 458, the Western regional hero, rushed into a burning house in Moore, Okla., to rescue an 8-year-old child recovering from brain surgery. The family could not speak English well, but he got them away from the house and figured out that one woman repeating “smoke, smoke” meant someone else was still inside. Bergonzi raced in, “scooped up the youngster” from the floor “and carried him outside just as a large burst of black smoke billowed into his face.”
* Richard Ortosky of Brook Park, Ohio, the Central Region hero, did not face a burning building — just four menacing, burly, angry and mean-spirited half-Rottweiler, half-German Shepherd dogs threatening to attack two litttle girls. Such dog attacks on kids have been fatal before. The Cleveland Branch 40 carrier got the dogs away from the two 8-to-10-year-old kids by attracting them — to himself. He distracted the dogs by shedding his coat. They tore it to pieces before the dog warden and police showed up.
* Paula Pieper, a 16-year-carrier of Branch 500 in Carlisle, Pa., also saved a life, but not by rushing into a burning building. She got the Carrier Alert award for noticing a regular customer, an 88-year-old man, had not collected his mail for two days last December. She did not know his family.
“But she figured out that a local business was run by his son,” Young said. Pieper called there, and alerted the man’s daughter-in-law — who came over to find the man had a stroke and was laying on the kitchen floor, dehydrated.
Without the carrier’s call, the man, who is now in a nursing home, would have died, the daughter-in-law said.
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NALC also gave awards to Juan Cordero, of Selma, Calif., as Humanitarian of the Year and to its Twin Cities branches for Branch Service: “Setting up a Letter Carrier booth at the Minnesota state fair for people to send greetings to U.S. troops” abroad. The booth at the State Fair “House of Labor” was operated by Branch 9 from Minneapolis and Branch 28 from St. Paul.
This article was written by Press Associates, Inc., news service. Used by permission.