HERO FUND RECOGNIZES 18 PEOPLE WITH CARNEGIE MEDAL FOR HEROISM including a local hero from Ogden Dunes
 
At a marina dock in Portage, Indiana, on July 6, 2025, a 38-year-old man was in electrified water caused by a faulty connection between his boat and the marina’s power source in water about 6.5 feet deep and about 3 feet from the dock. The man had jumped in to help his dog that had slipped from his boat into the water and was in obvious distress. He felt a shock and alerted others, including Matthew Lubieniecki, 52, assistant manager, from Ogden Dunes, Indiana. Upon hearing the man shout and knowing he was being electrocuted, Lubieniecki approached the edge of the dock. He bent over, used one hand to brace himself on the dock surface, and extended his other arm down to the man. Just above the water, the man had his forearms raised and Lubieniecki grasped his right hand to pull him up onto the dock. With his wife, Lubieniecki removed the dog from the water and placed it on the dock. The man was taken to the hospital by an ambulance and it was verified that he was electrocuted. He was treated and released. His dog also survived. Lubieniecki suffered a bite wound on his left hand from the dog as he pulled it from the water and also sustained an injury to his left arm.
 
The Carnegie Hero Fund is honored to recognize 18 individuals, including a 10-year-old boy who saved a 6-year-old from falling off a chairlift at a ski resort in Nellysford, Virginia; a 33-year-old teacher who helped rescue a 15-year-old student set on fire at a school in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan; and a 54-year-old man who
rescued the pilot of a sinking floatplane that flipped over and crashed in a lake in Bellevue, Washington.
 
All the men and women recognized today risked serious injury or death, or were killed, saving or attempting to save others in acts of extraordinary heroism. This is the Hero Fund’s first award announcement for 2026.
 
Each individual will receive the Carnegie Medal, North America’s highest honor for civilian heroism. Among those saved by this quarter’s Carnegie Medal recipients were eleven children, including an 11-yearold girl rescued from a burning vehicle by a 36-year-old man following an accident in Midway, Georgia, and a 6-year-old boy rescued from drowning by a 36-year-old woman in Ottawa, Ontario.
 
The Carnegie Medal is given throughout the U.S. and Canada to those who enter extreme danger while saving or attempting to save the lives of others. With this announcement, the Carnegie Medal has been awarded to 10,563 individuals since the inception of the Pittsburgh-based Fund in 1904. Each of the recipients or their
survivors will receive a financial grant. Throughout the 122 years since the Fund was established by industrialist-philanthropist Andrew Carnegie, $46 million has been given in one-time grants, scholarship aid, death benefits, and continuing assistance.