PITTSBURGH -- As his girlfriend lay shot and bleeding at his feet, Jake Ryker -- who had just taken a bullet to his chest -- said, "That's enough," and tackled the teenage gunman who had sprayed his school cafeteria with bullets.
Ryker, then 17, was joined by his brother, Josh, and three other boys in subduing Kip Kinkel, who shot and killed his parents before going on his shooting spree at Thurston High School in Springfield, Ore. Kinkel killed two students in the May 1998 rampage and has since pleaded guilty to four counts of murder and 26 counts of attempted murder. He is serving a 112-year prison sentence.For his courage in pouncing on Kinkel, Ryker was among 20 people from the United States and Canada who were to be honored for heroism Monday by the Pittsburgh-based Carnegie Hero Fund Commission. Five of the honorees died during rescues.
Each recipient gets a bronze medal and $3,000 from the commission, which was established in 1904 by steel magnate Andrew Carnegie after he was inspired by rescue tales from an industrial disaster.
The honor was one of many bestowed on Ryker, who has since graduated from high school and is now attending a community college and serving in the Marine Reserves. He also won the Honor Medal with Crossed Palms, the highest honor in the Boy Scouts of America; and the Silver Cross by the Legion of Valor, a group formed in 1890 of war veterans.
Ryker's father, Robert, said his son was away on reserve duty during the weekend and had not heard that he had been given the Carnegie Medal.
"It wasn't too out of character for him," Robert Ryker said of his older son's tackle. "Jake's always been kind of stubborn and set in his ways. He's had his own way of doing things. You can tell him what you think, and he'll listen, but he kind of goes his own way."
Jake Ryker has downplayed his role as a hero, saying at one point, "I was one of the five that tackled the guy. It wasn't me, it was five guys that did it."
"I'm glad somebody did it," said his father. "I'm proud that it's my sons . . . that's the way you'd want them to do it. They definitely did things right."
Also honored Monday was Brendan Wahl, 41, of Big Sur, Calif., a weekend surfer who paddled his big yellow board into the Pacific Ocean south of Carmel, Calif., last Christmas Eve and plucked Daniel Lackey, then 11, from the cold, choppy waves.
Daniel's family had stopped for sightseeing along the California coast on the way to the Hearst Castle, and he was trying to keep up with his brothers as they scampered on the seaside granite. A big wave caught him in a low point between two rocks and played with him before sending him toward Japan.
"For a while there it was like he was in a big washing machine. He kept getting jostled around, and then a big wave took him out," said Susan Lackey, Daniel's mother.
She flagged Wahl down after two other drivers whizzed by on California's famous seaside highway. Down on the rocks, one of Daniel's brothers had mounted an unsuccessful rescue and had to be saved himself.
And out in the water, Daniel was getting colder. He said he started to pray, worried about sharks and eventually decided he would die.
"I went down in the water and let all the air out of my lungs. But something made me come back up, and I looked on the shore and saw this big yellow thing," Daniel said.
That was Wahl's 9-foot board.