By the number of San Benito County Sheriff’s deputies present at the March 14 Board of Supervisors’ meeting, it was apparent that something special was taking place as two of their colleagues were awarded lifesaving medals and two received exceptional duty medals.
Capt. Eric Taylor, an operations captain, said the sheriff’s office recently instituted a policy and process for recognizing its employees for exemplary or heroic work. Awards include the Medal of Honor, Medal of Valor, Exceptional Duty Medal, Lifesaving Medal, and the Purple Heart.
Taylor explained, reading from a prepared statement, “…the Lifesaving Medal is important to office members or members of another law enforcement agency who personally perform acts that save human lives. The acts need not be performed under conditions requiring bravery or exposure to great personal risk. To be considered, the person having been saved need not sustain life in the long term, but by the deliberate act of the office member, must have been prevented from dying at the time and place that the act or aid was performed.”
Taylor awarded Deputies Cody Diller and Matthew Creager the Lifesaving Medal for saving a man who had hanged himself in an attempted suicide on June 5, 2015. They had been dispatched to Wright Road because of a possible trespass. Upon arrival, they were told that a man was on the property and had been acting strangely. While searching the property, the deputies discovered a man hanging from a tree convulsing and gasping for air.
They took the man down and he was treated at the scene before being transported to the hospital. Later, he was transferred to a Bay Area trauma center where he was treated for his medical and psychological conditions.
“It was the attention to duty and quick, lifesaving effort on the part of Deputy Diller and Deputy Creager that resulted in the male’s life being saved,” Taylor said. “He was then able to receive the care he needed.”
Taylor then presented the deputies the awards to a standing ovation from the audience and the supervisors.
Capt. Tony LaMonica then asked Sergeant Michael Mull and Deputy Victor Casada to stand as he told of how the two saved the lives of a family of four on Jan. 11 during the first floods during several weeks of torrential rain.
“In the early morning of Jan. 11, around 2 a.m. I received a phone call from Sgt. Mike Mull that advised me he was being asked, by fire (department) to respond Code 3 to Lovers Lane to assist in a water rescue,” LaMonica said. “I told Sgt. Mull to respond to the scene and get eyes on the situation.”
LaMonica commented that once he was fully awake, he wondered why the deputies were being called out for a water rescue.
“We don’t do water rescues,” he remembered thinking. “How are we going to do that?”
He went on to describe what the two deputies found when they arrived at Lovers Lane:
“They were told four people were trapped inside a vehicle with water rapidly rising and two were children,” he related. “Like any hero in a movie, Sgt. Mull and Deputy Casada commandeered a Cal Fire fire truck and one of their drivers to transport them to where the people were trapped.”
LaMonica went on to describe how the two deputies stripped off their duty gear (weapons) and road to the scene on the truck’s running boards.
“If you can imagine these two deputies on a CalFire truck, holding on while swift water about three or four feet was going by them; it’s pretty amazing,” he said. “Once they were near the trapped family, Deputy Casada attempted to reach the children, who were now on the roof of the truck.”
LaMonica said the water was by then at the windshield. He said Casada was not able to reach the children so he leaped into the water and swam to the truck.
“He retrieved the children and passed them to Sgt. Mull on the fire truck,” LaMonica said. “Once the children were safe on the truck, Deputy Casada and Sgt. Mull transferred the adults and their two dogs to the truck.”
He added that it was through their quick thinking and selflessness that the two were able to rescue the family.
“Though they were Class 1 and 2 rapids, deep water and full of debris, Deputy Casada selflessly jumped into the water, without proper equipment, for a water rescue,” LaMonica said and then joked to Casada, “we’ll talk about that later.”
LaMonica related how when he saw a soaked Casada, he told him to go to the sheriff’s office and change clothes.
“He refused to,” LaMonica said. “He wanted to stay at work. That’s the type of deputies we have in the sheriff’s department.”
As he presented the two with their awards, there was another standing ovation for all four deputies.
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