Lake Stevens teen wins Carnegie Medal for lifesaving bravery

Published 1:30 am Wednesday, July 6, 2016

A Lake Stevens teen who didn’t hesitate to rush into a burning home to save his neighbor is now the recipient of a prestigious Carnegie Medal. Along with the award, Kaiden Porter-Foy will receive $5,000.

Porter-Foy was a 16-year-old Lake Stevens High School student when, late one night last August, he heard popping sounds and saw that a nearby mobile home was ablaze. Racing outside and looking through the woman’s window, he could see her holding a gas can. He had to kick down her back door.

Inside, he grabbed the can and threw it. He then fought to carry the 54-year-old woman — against her will — out of the burning place to the home where he was living with his grandparents, Melody and Wayne Thomas. For his lifesaving act of bravery, he was honored in December at the American Red Cross Snohomish County chapter’s 2015 Real Heroes Breakfast.

On Thursday, the Pittsburgh-based Carnegie Hero Fund Commission announced that Porter-Foy is one of 23 new recipients of Carnegie Medals, which each come with a $5,000 grant. The medals are given throughout the United States and Canada to people who risk their lives to an extraordinary degree while saving or attempting to save others.

One medal recipient announced last week, Calindo Fletcher Jr., died while trying to save a man from drowning in Alabama on July 4, 2015.

Carnegie Medals are awarded quarterly, with about 85 given each year, said Eric Zahren, executive director of the Carnegie Hero Fund Commission. “The criteria are very strict, as they were laid out by the founder Andrew Carnegie in 1904,” Zahren said Friday. “Every case we look at is very much a life-or-death situation. An individual has to risk their life.”

Zahren said the commission looks to media reports to begin its search for worthy recipients. “We do a very thorough job of vetting them,” he added.

Porter-Foy, who also studied welding at Sno-Isle Tech Skills Center, could not be reached for comment.

In a Herald article last October, Lake Stevens police Sgt. Craig Valvick said investigators of the fire were amazed as the teen humbly told them what he had done.

“He was very composed for having literally just ran into a fire and saved somebody,” Valvick told Herald reporter Rikki King. “We were like, wow, that’s amazing, a young kid like that who had the fortitude to run into a burning house and not only save somebody but to look for them and get them out.”

Porter-Foy suffered minor burns to his arms, and the woman was hospitalized after her rescue.

Later, according to The Herald story, a Lake Stevens detective told Porter-Foy that his actions were both brave and dangerous, and that the teen should think about becoming a first responder.

Forty-seven Carnegie Medals have been awarded so far this year, bringing to 9,868 the number given since the fund was started in 1904 by Carnegie, an industrialist and philanthropist. In all, the fund has awarded more than $38 million in grants, scholarships, death benefits and other assistance.

Porter-Foy’s Carnegie Medal comes as the American Red Cross Snohomish County Chapter seeks nominations for its 2016 Real Heroes Breakfast, scheduled for Dec. 8 at the Tulalip Resort Casino. The deadline for nominations, which may be made online at www.redcross.org/nwheroes, is July 29.

Chuck Morrison, executive director of Snohomish County’s Red Cross Chapter, said that starting with the New Year’s Eve fire at The Bluffs apartment complex on Everett’s Casino Road, “we’ve been challenged in ways we never expected.”

“Yet we’ve also witnessed the exceptional courage of community members who stepped up to respond,” Morrison said. “These are the heroes that make our community a better, safer place to live.”

Julie Muhlstein: 425-339-3460; jmuhlstein@heraldnet.com.

Red Cross seeks 2016 Real Heroes

The Snohomish County chapter of the American Red Cross seeks nominations for its 21st annual Real Heroes Breakfast, scheduled for 7 a.m. Dec. 8 at the Tulalip Resort Casino. A nominee should live, work or be stationed in Snohomish County; the heroic act should be above and beyond the scope of a nominee’s job; the act should be verifiable by witnesses, police reports and/or news articles. Nomination deadline is July 29.

Nomination forms online at: www.redcross.org/nwheroes

Information: Jilleen.Ward@Redcross.org or 206-726-3543