Donald R. Arrigo

Donald R. Arrigo helped to save Patricia A. and Andrew P. Imler from burning, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, August 7, 1967. When fire broke out in their home and trapped them on the second floor, Patricia, 1, and Andrew, 4, were taken by their mother to a rear window which was about 20 feet above the ground. Arrigo, 32, truck driver, and other neighbors ran to the rear of the dwelling, but the mother refused to drop the children to them. Arrigo ran to a concrete walk in the 30-inch space between the Imler house and the next dwelling. He climbed seven feet onto the upper porch of the other dwelling. Arrigo then climbed a post at a corner of the porch and reached the edge of the sloping roof, which extended a foot beyond the post. When he had moved higher, he was able to grasp the right-angle edges of the roof and with effort climb onto it. He crawled to the corner adjacent to the wall of the dwelling and squatted in a built-in gutter four inches from the edge of the roof and 17 feet above the walk. Arrigo then was about five feet from the mother and three feet below her. She threw Patricia toward Arrigo, who steadied himself against the dwelling with one hand and extended the other 18 inches beyond the edge of the roof. He caught Patricia, drew her to him, and placed her on the roof. The mother then threw Andrew to Arrigo, who easily caught the boy. Arrigo took the children into the dwelling by means of a window opening onto the roof. The mother, who had suffered burns, was injured when she jumped to the ground, but she recovered after hospitalization.