An officer who rescued two dogs from a burning house and a group of Mounties who rescued a woman from an overturned car submerged in water were among the 84 B.C. police officers who received bravery awards this week.
On July 20, 2012, West Shore RCMP Const. Scott Rothermel arrived at the scene of a house fire to find neighbours desperately trying to get inside because they could hear dogs barking. Rothermel didn’t know if there were also people trapped inside, so he broke a window and climbed into the smoke-filled home.
He opened the front door and one of the dogs ran out. After searching much of the ground floor, he couldn’t find the second dog. But with oxygen flowing in through the front door, the second dog was able to survive the fire.
Rothermel was treated for smoke inhalation and cuts from the broken glass, and soon after the incident, was also treated to endless “who let the dogs out” puns by his police colleagues. For his actions, Rothermel was given an award of valour, the highest award for a police officer in B.C.
Three other West Shore RCMP officers, Cpl. Bryson Hill and constables Melissa Gorman and Harrison Teed, were given meritorious service awards for pulling a teenager from an overturned vehicle on Burnside Road West in the fall of 2012.
The vehicle flipped into a culvert. While one passenger was able to crawl out, the driver was trapped in the submerged vehicle. Gorman, Hill and Teed, along with a firefighter and paramedic, were able to tip the car sideways to pull the unconscious girl to safety.
“We’re in a job where we have the honour and fortune that the public has designated us to be the ones that they call when they need help,” Hill said Thursday as he reflected on the incident. “It’s less about being a hero and more about being given the opportunity to save someone’s life.”
Former Oceanside RCMP Const. Rochelle Carr, who now works with the RCMP criminal intelligence section, was also given a valour award for stopping two thieves who were trying to run her police cruiser off the road with their vehicle.
On Feb. 1, 2012, Carr was following a car linked to an art theft when the driver made a U-turn and drove at her head-on. Carr avoided being hit, but then the driver turned around again and hit her twice from behind.
The vehicle eventually lost control and Carr called for backup to arrest the two thieves.
Nanaimo RCMP Cpl. Phyllis Nielsen and Const. Martin Kortas were given awards of valour for rescuing a suicidal woman from a fast-moving river on Jan. 1, 2013.
Kortas said he and Nielsen were trying to call out to the woman, who was standing waist-deep in the frigid water. “It was clear she was not going to respond to us,” Kortas said, so the two waded into the water and pulled the woman to safety.
The 19 valour-award recipients and 68 meritorious-service recipients were selected by a committee of representatives from the B.C. Association of Chiefs of Police and the Ministry of Justice’s police services division.
