On March 12, 1998, Sandy Kennedy risked his life trying to save his brother from a burning house in Glace Bay, Nova Scotia. When the house of a friend he was visiting caught fire, Mr. Kennedy alerted the neighbours then raced back to find that his two friends had escaped safely to the roof but that his brother remained trapped upstairs. Despite intense heat and flames shooting from the windows, Mr. Kennedy rushed inside the front door. He was later found unconscious at the foot of the stairs and dragged outside by a police officer who had arrived on the scene. Tragically, Mr. Kennedy's brother perished in the fire.