Medal of Bravery

• Awarded on: January 24, 2001
• Invested on: June 22, 2001

On the evening of February 5, 2000, Lorraine Goodyear rescued her husband after his snowmobile plunged through the ice of Indian Bay Big Pond, in Newfoundland. Mrs. Goodyear had been trailing her husband on her own vehicle when she saw him break through the frozen surface. Hampered by his heavy, soaked clothing and the ice that kept breaking around him, the man was unable to get out by himself. Shouting encouragements, Mrs. Goodyear made her way on the precariously thin ice, crawling as she neared the hole, and threw him a rope. When efforts to pull him using her arms proved futile, she turned around with the rope over her shoulder and used the force of her weight to haul him out and drag him some ten metres to a thicker surface. She then helped him to her snowmobile and kept him alert as they drove to a nearby cabin where he was treated for severe hypothermia.