Carnegie Hero Fund Honors 18

We definitely need some heroes right about now, and here come the Carnegie Hero Medals. The Carnegie Hero Fund awarded 18 medals of valor today to people who risked their lives—four of them dying in the attempt—to save others. Andrew Carnegie started the fund in 1904 after hearing about people who saved others after a mine disaster. Medalists, who are chosen four times a year, receive financial grants, the AP reports. A look at the winners, who saved seven people from drowning and three from perishing in fires, among other things:

• Joshua W. Steed, 20: After his co-worker at a Texas apartment building was shot, the college student took down the gunman and got his weapon. Steed's co-worker lived.
• Ione Fletcher Kleven, 64: The California portrait artist heard a 14-year-old boy screaming for help, so she chased off the three men who had been beating and stabbing him. He recovered.
• Jonathan Paul Jones, 41, Makeda S. Barkley, 16, Kujtime Ajro, 29, and Nathan James Marling, 18: The Iowa men saved two boys from drowning in a river; Jones died while doing so.
• Carl Casey Loando, 54: The Hawaii man rescued an 85-year-old woman from her burning house.
• Christopher M. Johnson, 20: The Illinois man helped save a teen who broke through the ice on a pond.

Click for the complete list of winners. (More hero stories.)