New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1906-05-18
CARNEGIE HEROES TALK
Bear Honor8 ModestIy and Make
Light of Their. BraUery.

The two winners Of Carnegie medals in this city
Daniel J. Curtin. of No. 332 East seth street and
Michael F. O'Brien. Of No. 1887 Lexington avenue
took their honors modestly yesterday although they
are heroes in the eyes Of their friends and neigh
bors- Curtin a bright fifteen-year-old boy. re-
oetved bronze medal and $4,000 for educational
purposes and o'Brien, well built plasterer. sill
YER medal by a vote OF the Carnegie Hero Fund
Commission
Curtin operates a telephone switchboard in the
Office Of the Thomas Crimmins Contracting Com
pany, OF No. 444 East 69th street Within short
Time however he will start a course az Cooper
Unicn preparatory entering Stevens Institute to
study civil engineering
CuFtins heroism was long unknown because OF
his modesty. He did not tell his parents and
four brothers that. August 81 Of last year. he
jumped into the East River at 10th street and
rescued from drowning Hulda Johnson and Hilda
Zig, two ten-year- old girls. The current was very
swift, and young Curtin first rescued the johnson
girl and then jumped back and saved the Fig girl.
who was sinking for the third time.
Speaking of the award young Curtin said: 1T
all sudden like. l thought the whole thing
was forgotten until about two weeks ago. when
who said he was Frank L. Wilmot (Afr. VII
mot is the chairman Of the Hero Fund Commits
sion) asked me lot Of questions. He asked me II
would like to study il I had chance 70 90 TO
big school, and I told him would like TO be
civil engineer.
Would you like to go to Stevens Institutef
he asked.
the whole thing
Curtin lives with his father aunt and four broth
ers. and they are all exceedingly proud Of him.
O'Brien is one of a family Of fourteen the
youngest being Johnny. twenty-five years DID, ne
is known as a rough and ready man in his neigh
borhoOd, and said he thought the most Of the
medals and prizes he had won in prizehghting He
is plasterer by trade, but has a record OF over
twenty lives saved, from fires, the river and in
other ways Although all these acts were said to
be equally brave, the Carnegie medal is the first
he has received for act of heroisu.
O'Brien's feat which him the medal was
performed on August q. 1874 when he rescued
man, his wife and their daughter from a fra az
No S21 East 1O1st street. The building, six story
O'Brien FIRST carried down the husband Albert
Enrich who was unconscious. but revived on the
sidewalk, and said that his wife and daughter were
s P a2Pg0aSh vas Sat Oft r BY the
adjoining tenement house. jumping across the light
wall He severed an artery In his arm by broken
carried the daughter down to waiting fremen then
went back and got the mother. He was halfway
went to the hospital, and the two fremen who re-
ceived the woman from him received medals from
5ne city. OBrien got no recognition until yester-
0IBrlen. when asked about his many rescues
rescues from the river from other fires and from
nary plastereT and he was saving money for a
Mrs O,Brien. his mother, in speaking of Adchaers
boys are fine and they're harmless II some OF
them swell boys were put alongside Of Mike
The decision of the Carnegie Hero Commission
was Something Of snTPTss to esaH e 396 0tEs
when the news reached him at his home, No 50
as track walker on the elevated railroad in Man
East River a3 Tesaed s he 1g s into the
N mp atent III the r defk 81 t the ferTyboat Atlantic
day that he had simply ''helped the moor 'FeIioy-
out, and had forgotten the incident