CHP officers honored for heroic and life-saving acts

Today's column breaks the normal Q&A format to thank state emergency officials who saved lives through heroic actions.

Here are the stories of CHP officers presented with the Governor's State Employee Gold Medal of Valor Award. It honors employees' extraordinary acts of heroism to save community members, at great risk to the officers' own lives.

• CHP Officer Verna Mondell was working a commercial vehicle strike detail on March 26, 2020, at a scale facility on Interstate 80 in Citrus Heights. A pickup truck crashed into a tractor-trailer 500 feet from the facility and burst into flames. The pickup door could not be opened, so Officer Mondell tried to pull the unconscious driver through a window, but his legs were trapped. She leaned into the burning vehicle, grabbed the driver's waistband and shoulder, and pulled him to safety.

• Lt. Michael Berry, Sgt. Jeff Edgerton, and Officers Jeff Hatcher, Erik Mallory, Eric Pohrman, Steve Weyand and Jonathan Wion of the CHP Northern Division Air Operations Unit responded to a private plane crash at Benton Airpark in Redding on August 27, 2020.

Edgerton saw the plane attempting to take off and alerted others that the aircraft was about to crash. The officers rushed to the wreckage, down a steep embankment. They fought the heat and flames and moved two passengers to safety. Two others were trapped and died. Despite the team's efforts, the rescued passengers succumbed several weeks later to their injuries.

• Sgt. Patrick Bourassa was pursuing a high-speed driver on Interstate 5 in the Oceanside area on Feb. 20, 2021. A spike strip flattened two of the driver's tires, but he continued to evade officers at speeds of up to 100 mph. The driver ultimately lost control, the vehicle overturned and stopped 150 feet down a steep embankment.

Officers found the car on fire, on its side, the driver trapped. When the windshield could not be broken, Bourassa climbed onto the side of the vehicle. Helped by another officer, he pulled the driver's side door open, cut away the airbag, pulled the driver out and provided first aid, saving his life.

• Two officers assigned to CHP's Monterey Area office pulled three people from a vehicle that burst into flames following a crash on June 26, 2020. Officers had attempted to stop a car traveling more than 100 mph. The driver lost control, crashed into a tree, the car rolled over and caught fire. Officers Wesley Barnes and John Gallemore broke the driver's side window, pulled two teenagers to safety and confirmed that a third passenger was still inside the vehicle. They reentered the smoke-filled vehicle, found the unconscious passenger whose legs were pinned and got them out before flames filled the car's compartment. All occupants survived.

Thursday, we recall Caltrans workers who saved lives.