A University of Florida student who died trying to save a fellow student in a northwest Georgia cave in 2011 has been awarded a Carnegie Hero medal.
Michael Pirie, who was 18 when he died, was awarded the medal posthumously Tuesday for his actions in Walker County’s Ellison’s Cave on Feb. 12, 2011.
Pirie was among nine University of Florida students exploring the cave when someone dropped a bag down a 125-foot pit.
Grant Lockenbach, 20, rappelled down to retrieve the bag, but got tangled in his ropes in a frigid waterfall about 100 feet down.
Pirie went down to help Lockenbach, but both died, apparently from hypothermia, according to Walker County Sheriff Steve Wilson.
The Carnegie Hero medals are awarded by the Carnegie Hero Fund Commission to “individuals in the United States and Canada who risk their lives to an extraordinary degree saving or attempting to save the lives of others,” according to the commission’s website.
Winners recognized Tuesday were:
—Kevin Roberts, 43, of Mount Lookout, W.Va., who died trying to save four youths from drowning in swift currents off the coast of Bald Head Island, N.C., in June 2012.
—Ian Tordella-Williams, 27, of Carrboro, N.C., who also swam to help the same victims as Roberts, and gave them a flotation device to cling to until a boat rescued them.
—Christopher A. Pratt, 30, of Odin, Ill., who was burned while rescuing a toddler from a burning vehicle after a crash in Centralia, Ill., in December 2011.
—Kirk Montgomery Rohle, 22, of Mechanicsville, Va., who was burned on half of his body trying to save a fellow resident from burning in a pre-dawn house fire in Hampden Sydney, Va., in January 2012.
—Michael Wayne Pirie, 18, of Oviedo, Fla., who died trying to save a fellow college student who became trapped when he lowered himself into a 125-foot-deep pit while exploring a cave in Lafayette, Ga., in February 2011.
—Jason Ewing, 36, of Clarkston, Wash., who helped rescue a woman from her burning second-floor apartment in Lewiston, Idaho, in November 2010.
—Dustin E. Hibbard, 32, of Lewiston, Idaho, who helped Ewing rescue the same 35-year-old woman.
—Charles A. Miller, 39, of Wawaka, Ind., who rescued an unconscious 26-year-old woman from a burning vehicle after she crashed into a tree in Ligonier, Ind., in February 2012.
—Michael Blake, 48, of Sterling, Va., who rescued a 35-year-old man from being stabbed during a domestic dispute with another man armed with a butcher knife in Sterling in October 2011.
—Pamela Jones-Morton, 64, of Estero, Fla., who saved a woman and her 3-year-old granddaughter from burning after their vehicle crashed in Bonita Springs, Fla., in December 2011.
—Richard P. Baumgartner, 49, of Lubbock, Texas, who was wounded saving a woman from being assaulted when a knife-wielding man entered a Lubbock school and accosted staff there in May 2011.
—David Paul Murtha, 33, of Lindsay, Ontario, who saved a man from burning in a house fire in Lindsay in May 2010.
—Fred D. Leslie III, 35, of Ducktown, Tenn., who helped rescue a highway patrol officer whose cruiser was burning after a crash involving a tractor-trailer in Knoxville, Tenn., in March 2012.
The Associated Press contributed to this article.
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