Anaheim Youth Given Carnegie Heroism Award

Brad Hall of Anaheim has been showered with awards since he crawled through a burning, smoke-filled house to save the life of his best friend’s handicapped father. Monday, on the anniversary of the fire, Brad received national recognition for his heroism.

He was one of 24 people honored by the Carnegie Hero Fund Commission, which recognizes people who risk their lives trying to save others. Brad, 17, received a $2,500 award from the fund last week; a medal is soon to follow.

“I never imagined this,” Brad said Monday, shortly after he deposited the prize money in his savings account, to be used “either for a new car or my education.”

‘I Think It’s Great’

That’s just fine with Roland Winters, the wheelchair-bound photographer whom Brad dragged from his burning home on Dec. 22, 1985. “I think it’s great,” Winters said Monday. “He did a terrific thing for us.”

Brad had been spending the night at Winters’ home in Placentia when the fire broke out, ignited by a burning candle on a Christmas tree.

Brad and his friends, Don Winters and John Moore, escaped through a bedroom window. Three other members of the Winters family also escaped the rapidly spreading flames, but Roland Winters was trapped inside.

When Brad went back inside the house to find Roland, it didn’t occur to him that he was risking his own life, he recalled Monday. In the darkness, Roland called out to Brad, guiding the teen-ager to the laundry room where he was trapped.

“He was four feet from the flames that filled the adjoining rooms,” said Walter Rutkowski, secretary of the Carnegie Hero Fund Commission.

Brad dragged his friend’s father, who suffers from muscular dystrophy, about 28 feet to safety.

Roland Winters sustained only minor burns. Brad, who returned to the burning house to retrieve Winters’ two prized cameras, suffered smoke inhalation.

Since then, Brad has received a stack of plaques and certificates, commendations and medals--including Orange County’s highest award, the Medal of Valor. Other accolades have come from sources ranging from the California Senate to the National Enquirer.

“They don’t mean anything,” Brad said, surveying the honors spread across his living room floor. “The only meaningful thing is that he’s alive. That’s what matters.”

Two other Californians were among the 24 heroes honored Monday. Rex A. Lewis, 30, of Hollister tried in vain to save a man from suffocation after a 1984 power plant accident. Michael DeWitt Puckett, 31, of Fresno helped save Lewis, in turn, from suffocating in that rescue attempt.

Among others honored were an Ohio woman who died after saving a neighbor from a fire and three men killed by toxic gases while attempting to save a co-worker from suffocation at a waste treatment plant in Kentucky.

The awards announced Monday bring to 7,069 the number of people honored in the United States and Canada since industrialist Andrew Carnegie established the Hero Fund in 1904.