Medal of Bravery

• Awarded on: March 1, 2005
• Invested on: June 24, 2005

On April 4, 2004, Lori Abbott rescued an 11-year-old boy who was trapped between two sheets of shifting ice on the Qu'Appelle River, in Lumsden, Saskatchewan. Numbed by the frigid water, the boy was slowly losing his grip on the edge of the ice and slipping under the surface. Alerted to the child's predicament, Ms. Abbott entered the water, waded to reach the ice pan a few metres away, and pulled herself up onto the chunk of ice. Crawling onto the thin surface, she made her way to the nearly submerged boy and managed to haul him out of the icy water. Holding on to each other, Ms. Abbott and the child inched their way back until they reached the shore.