Norwich bulletin., 1914-05-01

Heroes Who Have Been Decorated With the United States Gov ernment Life $ aving Medal in the Past Fls- cal Year - Thrilling Rescues of Men and Women Who Faced Death by Drowning A Crippled Boy Who Saved His Mother and a Sailor Who Swam Through a Shark In- tested Sea.
 Jpecial Correspondence
 WASHINGTON. D. C., April 3, 1914.
 URINGr the past fis-
 ..' ] ] cal year there were A 7~N sixty-two medals of H H~ A honor awarded by AH K U A the United States ~ IT A/A government for ef- @ R/H forts made toward HA I saving persons in
 M H danger of drown A MMW H ing. This is the HhSI largest number of N medals ever given for like purpose during any one year since the inaugura- tion of the movement by Congress in 1874. e Possibly not one of the thousand gold and silver symbols of bravery that were bestowed in the forty years has ever found more meritorious placing than May 2s, 1913, when Charles Teller, a crippled boy of Brooklyn, N. Y, who saved his mother from drowning, was recognized as a hero and forwarded a silver medal by the Secretary of the Treasury It was in Jamaica bay, N. Y, and the lad, then a mere child, after rowing from the landing of Bergen Beach Yacht Club,
 
 alongside a sIoop belonging to some friends. and anchored perhaps 600 yards out. Just as the sister got board the sloop and the mother, a very large wom- an, was being helped up, the skiff shot from under her, throwing the boy across the stern and his mother into the water. The bay was deep there and the current very strong, but the cripple sprang over board as quickly as he had fallen, and though his waist and one leg were in- cased in a plaster cast which held iii place broken hip, with one arm he sup. ported his mother against the sweep of the current and successfully used the other in a swimming motion which kept them from sinking until ladder could be tossed over the side of the sloop and bott hauled up on deck
 John J. Ward of the New York cit, bureau of fire prevention, while doins duty on floating engine No s8, at tht foot or Gansevoort street one intensely dark night when there was a strong tidt In North river, rescued a man named John Cochran.
 It was in the winter the windows O. the hreboat were down and Ward wa. remarking upon the increasing cold wley cries of terror were heard without Fling ing up one of the windows, he dashed
 
 piece of the adjacent pier, leaped into th. water near where he thought the sounds issued. "--F The other firemen presently recovered from their amazement rushed to tn switch and turned the searchlisht ol the spot where Ward had disappeared to find that he had already reached tn drowning man whose death cry they ha, heard. A rope was thrown out, and bot brought in safely. Ward received silver medal on the last day of the fsca year. June 30, 1913.
 In the month before, on the 18th, ex treme herosm, shown in the act of Harr Williams Miller sergeant of the IT. $ Marine Corps. in saving a man name Owen Gallagher from the same river, wa rewarded with the gold medal.
 This occurred in December, in the mids of a raw heavy fog. The ferryboat New ark coming out of Jersey City, was clos to the foot of Cortlandt street, Tn sergeant a passenger, was anxious to gt into the city for an important engage rnent. So much, however, does militar training mean that the cry of Man ovei boardr' acted upon him like some shar command of a superior officer and, witf out stopping to think, he leaped into th churnng sea, in the very midst of tn boats propellers
 
 Reaching the struggling unfortuna was difficult, for the thick mist lay C the waters as an opaque pail. With u people on deck shouting excitably. ar the noise and danger of the swingir prepellers, 1t was several minutes befol Miller got to the man. drifting past Il bow. Then several more minutes laggs by, during which the half-dead fello was held up by the sergeant, before skin xas dropped and the two men draw