Medal of Bravery
Awarded on: 1983-01-10
Invested on: 1983-03-04
Early in the afternoon of 1 July 1981, Michael Burke, then under medical orders to restrict his activities due to surgery he had undergone two weeks previously, was relaxing at the Sunnyside Campgrounds. But when alerted to the fact that a teenager was drowning, at the risk of another spontaneous collapse of his right lung and the possibility of ripping open his surgical wound, he dove into the murky water. He persisted in his search until he found the inert body of the teenage boy and brought him to shore. At once he applied mouth-to-mouth resuscitation and continued to do so on the way to the hospital. Unfortunately, the youth later died.