Airman receives medal for water rescue

  • Published
  • By Staff Sgt. Julie Weckerlein
  • Air Force Print News
WASHINGTON --  Rescuing an elderly woman from a Florida canal earned an Air Force sergeant an Airman’s Medal, presented by the Air Force chief of staff in a ceremony here Aug. 31.

Tech. Sgt. Michael Downey II, assigned to the office of the Air Force chief of staff, received the highest award for heroism in peacetime from Gen. John P Jumper. At the time of the incident, Sergeant Downey was a security forces trainer at the U.S. Air Force Special Investigations Academy in Georgia.

“This is but a small reward for the courage and commitment displayed by (Sergeant Downey). It’s encouraging to know there are people like him serving in the Air Force,” General Jumper said during the presentation.

Established by Congress in 1960, the Airman’s Medal is given for acts of lifesaving, or attempted lifesaving, performed at the risk of one’s own life.

Sergeant Downey said he was not expecting to save a life Oct. 17, 2003, when he took his then 3-year-old son, Joseph, for a walk along the Intercoastal Waterway in Boynton Beach, Fla. He was in town on leave to be with his father, who had suffered a heart attack a few days earlier.

The leisurely walk turned into much more when Sergeant Downey saw a car lose control on the road and plunge over barriers into a canal below.

Leaving his son with another bystander, Sergeant Downey dove into the water and swam out to the car, where he calmed down the vehicle’s sole occupant, a disoriented 89-year-old great-grandmother. As the car began to sink, he coaxed the woman to roll down her window so he could pull her out. He then swam with the woman in tow to the safety of a nearby boat. Within seconds, the car was completely submerged.

“Everything happened so fast. A lot of it was just instinct and training,” Sergeant Downey said.

His wife, Cheryl, said her husband’s humility is typical.

“The day it happened, he and my son came home and there was a big commotion about him being all wet. He told me what happened, but the enormity of it didn’t hit until I saw the story in the newspapers,” she said. “That’s when it sunk in that he had saved this woman’s life, and I shed a few tears.”

Despite being hailed a hero by General Jumper, Sergeant Downey insisted he is just an ordinary person who was in the right place at the right time.

“There’s really only one person I want to see me as a hero, and that’s my son,” he said. “I’ve yet to meet another (Airman) who wouldn’t have done the same thing.”