Star of Courage

• Awarded on: June 17, 1991
• Invested on: December 13, 1991

At the risk of his own life, Joel Dumaresq was responsible for keeping a critically injured man alive until he could be rescued from Slalok Mountain near Pemberton, British Columbia on September 17, 1988. As a passenger in a helicopter searching for a lost hiker, Mr. Dumaresq spotted the man lying on a precarious ledge at 2300 metres. Because the helicopter was unable to land on the mountainside, Mr. Dumaresq was forced to jump off the skid onto a ledge some 20 metres below the victim. Untrained in mountain climbing and lacking proper clothing and equipment, he, nonetheless, ascended the icy and rugged rock face, finally reaching the man whom he found seriously injured, semi-conscious and suffering from hypothermia. Mr. Dumaresq immediately covered him with a jacket and spent the next five hours huddled on the exposed and narrow ledge attempting to keep the victim awake while an emergency team coordinated the rescue. The victim was finally removed in a basket stretcher suspended from the helicopter and flown to hospital.