Eighteen named as recipients of Carnegie Hero medals

<p>Eighteen people, including a Georgia man, were to be honored Thursday with Carnegie Medals for heroism, including four who died while helping to save others.</p><p>One of those was retired teacher Domenic G. Guinta, 55, of Lutz, Fla., who died while helping to save a boy from drowning near Dunedin, Fla., on July 21, 2004. Guinta had been fishing nearby when a boy, his three brothers and grandmother were pulled out into the Gulf of Mexico by a strong current.</p><p>Guinta reached the boy and held him above the water while he was submerged. The boy, his family and others who swam out to help all reached shore safely. Guinta was pulled from the water, and later died of drowning.</p><p>Also among the recipients is William Eugene Jones, of Jonesboro, Ga., who died after helping save a girl from drowning in Panama City Beach, Fla., on July 2, 2003.</p><p>The other recipients include a man who saved a woman trapped in her car on a railroad track as a train approached, a woman who saved a woman whose car slid off an icy road and into a river, and a woman who tried to save a 7-year-old boy from a burning house.</p><p>The Pittsburgh-based Carnegie Hero Fund Commission meets five times a year to choose heroes, who are brought to its attention through newspaper clips or tips to the commission's Web site.</p><p>Industrialist Andrew Carnegie started a hero fund in 1904 after being inspired by rescue stories from a mine disaster that killed 181 people. Those awarded the bronze medal and $3,500 are announced five times a year. Since the fund was established, 8,902 people have received the medals and $27.7 million has been given in one-time grants, scholarship aid, death benefits and continuing assistance.</p><p>___</p><p>On the Net:</p><p>HASH(0x1cd9d54)</p>

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