The Southern California aide received the Honorable Hero Award for saving a child from a car Thursday before being attacked by a San Bernardino County train.
The dramatic rescue in the Redlands, caught up in the film on September 20, 2024, won the Carnegie Medal Award for San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Deputy and Perris resident Michael Anthony Castaneda.
According to a spokesman for the Carnegie Hero Fund Committee, Castaneda, 38, was off-duty when it happened. He was driving behind an SUV, which was unknown to Castaneda at the time, carrying his mother and her two daughters.
Afterwards, as the SUV crossed the train tracks, Castaneda saw the intersecting arms descending on either side of the family’s car and stopped on the track between the two gates. “Castaneda watched the woman leave the SUV and retrieved her 2-year-old daughter from the back seat on the driver’s side, standing next to the vehicle, standing next to her on the approaching freight train road that travels about 10 mph,” the spokesman elaborated. “The mother then partially entered the back seat and helped the girl’s five-year-old sister come out of the car seat.”
At this moment, Castaneda realized that her mother was unable to safely guide her two children in time. He got out of the car and sprinted about 50 feet into the SUV, grabbing the toddler and carrying it safely – at the same time, the mother showed up carrying the five-year-old to the other side of the truck.
Castaneda then returns the girl to her mother, but no one is harmed.
“The Carnegie Hero Fund Committee will award the Carnegie Medal to individuals across the US and Canada who risk themselves in order to save extraordinary degrees trying to save the lives of others,” the spokesman said. “The Carnegie medal is considered the highest civilian honor to heroism in North America.”
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