Pair Honored for Life-Saving Valor

A Meiners Oaks resident and a Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputy have been honored by the County Fire Department and the Board of Supervisors for heroism in rescuing victims from burning vehicles.

Tim Donoghue of Meiners Oaks was awarded the department’s Lifesaving Medal in recognition of an incident Feb. 5, when he helped carry three Ojai teen-agers to safety after their car ran off the road and burst into flames on California 33 near Oak View.

“Mr. Donoghue entered a burning vehicle to help extricate a trapped passenger,” Deputy Fire Chief George E. Lund said in a letter to the supervisors. “He then returned to search for other victims at great personal risk.”

The sheriff’s deputy, Steven R. Smith, received the Fire Department’s Medal of Valor for rescuing a motorist from a burning vehicle on the Simi Valley Freeway in Simi Valley last Nov. 24. Smith, a member of a sheriff’s helicopter crew, “put his own life in extreme danger and, in fact, received burns and possible lung damage in order to save the life of another,” Lund said. “He has set an example for all of us to look up to.”