By Anthony F. Irwin
More than 300 people gathered inside Fullerton Community Center last week to celebrate police officer acts of heroism.
These kinds of ceremonies were not previously annual but, upon Chief Dan Hughes’ appointment, a priority was made to hold this event once a year, explains Captain Lorraine Jones.
“One of today’s awards is for a case that took place back in ’03. A life was saved and the officers responsible have yet to be publicly recognized by our Department. That will never happen again,” said Capt. Lorraine Jones.
She was referring to Cpl. Steve Rubio and Officer Richard Gibson.
They performed CPR on a then 20 month-old Mackayala Jesperson for seven minutes before paramedics arrived on the scene to take over.
Jesperson was pronounced dead at the hospital but miraculously regained life shortly thereafter.
Rubio and Gibson were rewarded the department’s Life Saving Medal.
Sgt. Craig Odom also earned the Life Saving Medal for rescuing the driver of a Chrysler 300 that caught fire after an accident that occurred in June of 2012.
Odom realized the dire circumstances and acted quickly to release the driver. Because of those actions, the driver did not sustain any further injury while her car continued to burn.
The Fire Department credited Odom for saving her life as she would not have survived in the flames as her car continued to burn until they arrived to put it out.
The other Life Saving Award went to Sgt. Steve Williams, who rescued a suicidal man from the public storage locker he had imprisoned himself inside of in April of this year.
Williams found the man slashing his wrists with a scalpel and had no safe way to approach.
By successfully deploying his Taser, Williams forced the man to drop his weapon, and kept pressure on the open wounds long enough for paramedics to arrive, treat, and transfer the man to the hospital.
Had it not been for Sgt. Williams quick actions, the man may have been successful in committing suicide”, said Sgt. Stuart.
