Const. Matt Baines presents John Thomas Prokop with the Carnegie Medal on April 3, 2019. (Municipality of North Cowichan)
John Thomas Prokop, the owner of James Street Billiards in Duncan, received the Carnegie Medal on Wednesday for helping to rescue an RCMP officer during an assault in 2016.
According to the Municipality of North Cowichan, on July 8, 2016, an RCMP officer was struggling to detain a man who was resisting arrest and reaching for the officer’s duty belt that held a holstered handgun.
The assailant put the officer in a headlock and that’s when Prokop ran to the pair and grabbed the man. The officer escaped the headlock and put the man in a headlock while Prokop pinned the man’s legs.
“It is an incredible honour to recognize Mr. Prokop today,” Mayor Al Siebring said in a statement. “Mr. Prokop was one of only eighteen people – 16 Americans and two Canadians – who were named Carnegie heroes in 2018, and we are grateful for his presence in our community.”
The Carnegie Hero Fund Commission was created in 1904 to recognize outstanding acts of selfless heroism performed in the United States and Canada. The medal is awarded to those who risk their lives to an extraordinary degree while saving or attempting to save the lives of others.
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