{"id":109975,"date":"2019-12-03T10:39:17","date_gmt":"2019-12-03T15:39:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/?p=109975"},"modified":"2019-12-05T12:33:26","modified_gmt":"2019-12-05T17:33:26","slug":"21st-annual-real-heroes-breakfast-dec-4-2019","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/?p=109975","title":{"rendered":"21st annual Real Heroes Breakfast Dec. 4, 2019"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

The American Red\nCross of Central New York will honor several people for extraordinary courage\nat its 21st annual Real Heroes Breakfast on Wednesday, Dec. 4 at 7:30 a.m. at\nthe Oncenter in Syracuse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Real Heroes\nBreakfast celebrates the Red Cross mission of alleviating human suffering by\nrecognizing people who have performed heroic acts in life-threatening\nsituations. Sixteen Central New Yorkers will be recognized as\nheroes. The honorees include\nfirst responders as well as ordinary citizens who are directly responsible for\nsaving a life or multiple lives. Others are being honored for a devotion to\nservice in their communities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The guest speaker\nis Syracuse Chief of Fire Michael J. Monds. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Proceeds from the Real Heroes Breakfast support the Red Cross.\nThe Central New York Chapter serves Cayuga, Cortland, Madison, Onondaga and\nOswego counties.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the past year, the chapter responded to 166 local\ndisasters, assisting 256 families; made 502 households safer through the\ninstallation of 955 free smoke alarms as part of the Home Fire Campaign;\ntrained 13,775 people in first aid and CPR; provided 883 case services for\nmilitary members, veterans and their families through Service to the Armed\nForces; and collected 36,100 blood donations from volunteer donors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

2019 Real Heroes: <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

ADULT GOOD SAMARITAN: Terri McBride<\/strong> was born and\nraised in Central New York, and supports the community on an ongoing basis. She\ngenerously contributes her time and talent to several organizations. Her\nphilanthropic activities include supporting members of the military, first\nresponders and their families; as well as advocacy for quality care and\nadoption of rescue animals. She\u2019s also certified in CPR and First Aid. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

ANIMAL RESCUE: Casey Hargrave, Levi Darling and Brad\nClark<\/strong> put their own safety aside to rescue a doe who had fallen\nthrough the ice on Sandy Pond in January. Venturing out in a canoe, Levi and\nBrad broke through the ice taking over an hour to reach the doe. The doe\npanicked and tried to get further away. Quick thinking Casey used his drone and\nits noise to coax the doe back in the correct direction. These three heroes\nsaved the doe and brought this story to a good ending.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

BLOOD SERVICES: Deanna Nance<\/strong> is a Delta Airlines\nemployee who has led the way coordinating four blood drives at the airport,\naveraging 40 donations each time. She also is a major force in recruiting\ndonors throughout the airport and educating as many people as she can on the\nimportance of donating blood. In this way Deanna is instrumental in countless\nlives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

COMMUNITY SERVICE<\/strong> : Alex Cimino Jr, Ben\nColwell, Patrick McCormick, Tyler Peet and Valerie Pirro<\/strong> recognized a\nneed to keep everyone safe on the Le Moyne college campus. Through several\nyears of dedication and hard work, they successfully implemented Le Moyne EMS,\nproviding much-needed emergency services for the campus community.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

FIRE RESCUE<\/strong> : Syracuse Firefighter Joseph\nSkardinski<\/strong> entered a smoke-filled apartment and found a man who wasn\u2019t\nbreathing. The resident is hearing-impaired and didn\u2019t hear the smoke alarms. Firefighter\nSkardinski carried him out of the apartment. Emergency first aid was provided\nand the man was transported to a hospital. Due to this firefighter\u2019s heroic\neffort, the man has recovered from his injuries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

LAW ENFORCEMENT<\/strong>: Homer Police Officer Michael\nHowell<\/strong> has been a police officer for 12 years; however, he has served\nas a first responder for more than 30 years. In early April, Officer Howell\nresponded to a structure fire, arriving before the fire department. Upon\narrival he determined there were residents still inside the burning building. He\nentered the structure and assisted those still inside to safety outside and\ncontinued to follow up to make sure they were all ok. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

MEDICAL<\/strong>: Nicole Hunt<\/strong> is a development aide supervisor for the New York State Office for People with Developmental Disabilities. She\u2019s a caring individual and tireless advocate for residents of the homes. On June 4, Nicole was working in a home that she was not regularly assigned to, but had been there before, so she was familiar with the residents. One of the residents suddenly became distressed. Nicole performed CPR, and although she became exhausted, she continued until emergency responders arrived and relieved her.\u202f <\/p>\n\n\n\n

MILITARY<\/strong>: Justin Muir<\/strong> loves what he does, and his attitude and actions prove it. He has served as a Marine with tours in Iraq and Lebanon and helped with disaster relief operations in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. Justin suffered an injury while serving in Iraq. He and his rescue dog Bella are proud graduates of the \u201cDogstoVets\u201d program at Clear Path for Veterans where he now works. Justin and Bella visit VA hospitals, listening to veterans and helping them have a better day. Justin also provides transportation for veterans, enabling them to attend special programs for veterans such as at the canteen at Clear Path, a program providing complimentary lunch for veterans. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

WORKPLACE SAFETY<\/strong>: John Walsh<\/strong> is a long-time employee of major airlines. While working at Hancock International Airport in Syracuse, he was concerned what would happen if there was an aircraft accident at the facility. He became the leading force in the airport\u2019s Airline Response Plan. John was involved in emergency drills and went from participant to planner and then to facilitator and evaluator, providing valuable insight into procedures and protocol in the event of an airline disaster. John continually works on improving airline emergency response. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

YOUTH GOOD SAMARITAN<\/strong>: Robert James Drager<\/strong>, better known as \u201cRJ,\u201d was celebrating his 7th<\/sup>\u00a0birthday with a pool party at his family\u2019s home, \u201cRJ\u201d noticed one of his friends was underwater with his eyes and mouth open. \u201cRJ\u201d quickly responded, pulling his friend to the surface. Adults nearby pulled the boy out of the pool and administered CPR until medical professionals arrived.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The American Red Cross of Central New York will honor several people for extraordinary courage at its 21st annual Real Heroes Breakfast on Wednesday, Dec. 4 at 7:30 a.m. at the Oncenter in Syracuse. The Real Heroes Breakfast celebrates the Red Cross mission of alleviating human suffering by recognizing people who have performed heroic acts […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":66739,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[23810,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-109975","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-wellbeing","category-top-story"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/madisoncountycourier.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/Red-Cross.jpg?fit=628%2C472&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p43meu-sBN","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109975","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=109975"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109975\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/66739"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=109975"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=109975"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=109975"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}