CARNEGIE MEDAL awarded to Michael C. Couch attempted to rescue Robert L. Owen from burning, Columbia City, Indiana, June 18, 1981. After a highway accident, Owen, 30, sat pinned inside the burning cab of his tractor-trailer rig. Michael, 16, high school student, tried to scale the driver’s side of the cab to reach Owen but was forced away by heat. Climbing onto the passenger side, he stood above the fuel tank and reached inside the cab to try to free Owen. Moments before the fuel tank exploded, engulfing the cab in flames, Michael jumped from the cab. Owen died.
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