Warren officers to receive Carnegie Medals for saving electrocuted 8-year-old
FOX 2 (WJBK) - Two Warren police officers are now receiving top honors after saving an 8-year-old boy who was electrocuted by a live wire in August 2022.
Warren Police Cpl. Detective Daniel Rose and Officer David Chapman will be recognized by the Carnegie Hero Fund Commission for their selfless courage when they had only seconds to take action.
"It’s really nice. It’s not something that we do this for," Rose, of Sterling Heights, said.
The Carnegie Medal is a prestigious honor awarded to those who risk death or serious physical injury to an extraordinary level to save, or try to save, another life, according to the Carnegie Hero Fund Commission.
"It’s a privilege. It’s an honor. Really it is, because I’m doing this for my family," said Chapman, a Detroiter. "I mean I’m achieving things that I didn’t think I would be able to."
At the time of the incident, the officers put their own lives at risk by rushing toward the live wire and dragging the boy away. They were able to get the child to breathe after he took more than 4,000 volts of electric shock.
"The two officers pulled the boy about 10 feet away from the power line. Rose felt an electrical charge in his arm and Chapman felt his hand burning," according to a news release from the Carnegie Hero Fund Commission. "They released the boy but returned to render additional first aid."
The Carnegie Medal
The boy's 10-year-old brother was also at the scene, helping in the rescue.
"When I saw that wire, my first reaction was ‘I gotta grab him. I have to because I can’t just stand here and watch him fade away. I gotta to do something," Chapman said. "When I first initially bent down with him to grab him, not only was his leg hot but the wire over our heads - I felt the heat. It was like literally that close… Had I sat up just a little bit I could have been down there with him."
"I was terrified. I saw myself laying there, I saw what could happen. But somehow you overcome that," Rose added.
The boy suffered severe burns to his hands after he grabbed onto the power line with both hands – causing him to get electrocuted.
After he regained consciousness, police carried the boy to a police car and drove him to a local hospital in about four minutes.
"Everybody worked. Everybody closed off roads. We were able to just go straight without stopping," Rose said.
Warren Police Cpl. Detective Daniel Rose (left) and Officer David Chapman (right).
Rose and Chapman already received the Valor Award and became Officers of The Year for their bravery in the same incident.
And while they are grateful, they simply say it’s all about their duty to serve and protect.
"Like they say, you run towards danger. We don’t run from it," Chapman said.
Life-saving rescue of electrocuted boy by Warren police officers: 'I gotta get him'
The police officers rushed in, close to a live wire to save the child. The boy may not be alive today if they didn’t put their own lives on the line.