MSgt. Michael Garrison with the Space and Missile Systems Center in Los Angeles has received an Airman’s Medal for saving the unconscious driver of a car and others potentially in the car’s path as it rolled down the street toward a cliff overlooking the beach below. Garrison drove his car ahead of the driverless car, parked, and ran back to the still moving car. He jumped in through the passenger window to reach the gear lever, throwing it into park and finally stopping the car. Meanwhile, Garrison’s wife, in his car with their child, had called emergency services to aid the woman driver, who had gone into a seizure. (SMC report by Peggy Hodge)
The dramatic and sprawling two-day operation to save the crew of an F-15E Strike Eagle shot down over Iran on April 3 involved hundreds of personnel, dozens of aircraft—and multiple close calls.