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CEDAR CITY — A Cedar City police officer who helped rescue an older man from a burning home in early January will receive an official commendation for his lifesaving efforts.
Officer Patrick McCoy is scheduled to be recognized Tuesday evening in St. George, during the annual awards dinner of the Utah Chiefs of Police Association, Cedar City Police Chief Darin Adams told Cedar City News.
As previously reported in Cedar City News, on the morning of Jan. 3, firefighters and emergency personnel responded to a fire at a residence at 320 W. 900 North.
The home's only occupant, a man later identified as Larry Taylor, was still inside the burning building when the initial responders first arrived.
During a recent interview with Cedar City News, McCoy said he had been in the area of the skate park at nearby Bicentennial Park when he first noticed some smoke in the air. At first, McCoy said he thought it might have been a controlled burn, but then soon heard the dispatch call summoning firefighters to a residence at the end of a nearby street.
"I got there and there's smoke billowing out the front door and the windows," McCoy recalled. "I asked the people that were there, who'd called it in, and I said, 'Does anybody live there?'"
After being told that an older man lived in the home by himself, McCoy said he then ran up to the front door and opened it.
Read the full article and see the body camera video at St. George News.
