Medal of Bravery

• Awarded on: September 26, 1983
• Invested on: December 09, 1983

In the small hours of the morning of 3 December 1981, Alfred Gracie, while driving on Barnett Highway, saw flames coming out of a mobile home located in a trailer park. He stopped his car and, in spite of dense heat and smoke, entered the trailer. Finding a woman in a state of shock and grasping for breath, he seized her and took her safely out-of-doors. Concerned that the raging fire soon would spread, Mr. Gracie pounded on the windows of a neighbouring trailer, awakening a family of four. Meanwhile, the unfortunate women had re-entered her burning home through the back door in an attempt to search for her son, who, it was learned subsequently, had departed for work earlier. At great risk, Mr. Gracie pursued the woman through the fire and carried her out. Her husband perished. Had it not been for Mr. Gracie's courageous action other lives could well have been lost.