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PITTSBURGH (AP) — A high school teacher who subdued a gun-wielding student as he opened fire in the school cafeteria is one of 18 people being honored with Carnegie Medals for heroism.
The Pittsburgh-based Carnegie Hero Fund Commission announced the award winners on Monday.
In September 2017, a student told Mattoon High School teacher Angela Lynn McQueen that a 14-year-old boy was showing off a gun in the cafeteria of the school in Mattoon, Illinois.
As McQueen approached, the boy began to fire the weapon toward other students.
McQueen lunged for the gun and forced the boy's hand toward the ceiling as he continued to fire. When the gun was empty she disarmed him as the school resource officer arrived to handcuff the student.
One student was injured, and McQueen has suffered minor hearing loss in both ears and post-traumatic stress disorder as a result of the incident.
The Hero Fund commission was founded and endowed by steel magnate and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie. It has awarded over $40 million to more than 10,000 heroes or their families since 1904.
Other winners announced Monday include:
—Perneice White, of Gretna, Virginia, rescued her neighbor from a burning pickup truck.
—Michael Chandler, of Stafford, Virginia, and Kenneth Raye Gooch, Jr., of Powells Point, North Carolina, rescued a boy who had been carried out to see by a rip current. Gooch drowned in the attempt.
—C. Kemp Littlepage, of Devon, Pennsylvania, and William Bostic, of King of Prussia, Pennsylvania, both responded to a car that had entered a lake after its driver suffered a seizure.
—Raul Carrillo, of Derby, Kansas, saved a man from a burning vehicle.
—Troy Martin of Santa Paula, California, saved a man from a burning vehicle.
—Van Anderson, of Chattanooga, Tennessee, rescued a 3-year-old after a semi-truck containing 5,000 gallons of toxic acid hit the pickup truck containing the girl and her mother.
—Stephen Anthony Eberle, of Ivoryton, Connecticut, and James Carroll, of Middletown, Connecticut, saved a man from a burning vehicle.
—Julie Callaghan, of Chilliwack, British Columbia, attempted to rescue a man whose wheelchair was stuck on railroad tracks as a train barreled toward him.
—Ryan Scott McIlwain, of Douro-Dummer, Ontario, rescued a man who was struggling to stay afloat in a river.
—Troy Strickland, of Scottsburg, Virginia, died while attempting to save a girl from drowning in the Atlantic Ocean off North Carolina.
—Marvin George Dixon, Cromwell, Connecticut, and Jose Casanova, of New Britain, Connecticut, helped rescue a police officer who was being stabbed by a woman.
—Taylor Rod White, of New Harbour, Newfoundland and Labrador, rescued a woman after her car veered off a road into a boy of the Atlantic Ocean.
—Andrea Harris, of Tuscaloosa, Alabama, saved a boy from a burning vehicle.
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