Innerkip Firefighter Receives Carnegie Hero Award

Wednesday, 12 June 2013 11:10

An act of heroism has earned an Innerkip Firefighter a prestigious life saving award. Nick Dorken received a Carnegie Hero Fund medal today. Dorken was on vacation in February 2012, driving back to their condo in Ft. Myers at 2AM, from a full day at Disneyland with his family when they spotted a car on fire. At first, Nick thought the blaze was a dumpster fire. "My only inclination to turn around was to actually show my daughter what firefighters do when they roll up on scene to show her my job. My wife convinced me to turn around and wake her up, even though it was very late at night. Sure enough, we found the vehicle on fire with the victim still inside. If it wasn't for my wife (Kim), I would have kept on driving." Nick approached the scene and noticed the unconscious driver still behind the wheel. He had apparently fallen asleep at the wheel, jumped a berm, and crashed into a light standard in a grove of palm trees in a parking lot. Dorken says he rushed the scene, regardless of the fact that he wasn't equipped for a rescue. "I was in a muscle shirt, shorts and running shoes, and I had just taken my Mickey ears off. We (firefighters) train on people who are entrapped, and we always have to go the extra mile and use our tools and our gear to get these people out. And that's what I was thinking as I was racing towards this vehicle. He was fairly free of all obstructions and I was able to get him out fairly easily." Moments later, the car was fully engulfed in flames. (Photo on right - taken by Kim Dorken) Today, Dorken received a Carnegie medal from Doug Chambers, who travels all over North America meeting heroes and issuing these unique medals. "The Carnegie medal is a bronze medal, it's unique. There's only one of them in the world, it's unique to him with a description of his heroic act on the back of it. In addition, everyone of our awardees gets a financial grant of $5000, which is theirs to use as they wish." Chambers says their medals are only awarded to civilians who risk their life extraordinarily to save another. "We do not take 'extraordinarily degree' lightly. To put that in perspective, 20% of the awardees are awarded posthumously, because they died in the act."