Medal of Bravery

• Awarded on: February 26, 2002
• Invested on: December 09, 2002

On July 12, 1999, Noah Wiggans attempted to rescue a man, his son and his daughter who were lying unconscious at the bottom of a well used as a root cellar on their family farm near Sylvan Lake, Alberta. Alerted that his three neighbours had collapsed after going down into the oxygen-deprived well, Mr. Wiggans raced to the scene to help. Although fully aware that the fumes in the enclosure created a grave risk to his own life, he took a deep breath and climbed down the three-metre ladder to the bottom of the small, dark and damp concrete cellar where the victims' limp bodies lay in a heap. With bursting lungs, he came back up, gasping for air, then hurried down again with a rope which he tied around the top victim's waist. He then persevered in his struggle to pull the teenage boy up through the narrow opening until emergency crews arrived. While the father recovered soon afterwards, sadly, his two children did not survive the ordeal.