State Forest Ranger I

Department of Forestry and Fire Protection

6/19/1985

Special Service Award (Silver)

On June 19, 1985, State Forest Ranger (then Fire Captain) Charles M. Heinbach, Jr., performed an extraordinary act of heroism at great risk to his personal safety, while providing basic life support techniques to a young man involved in a major head-on collision on Highway 49 in the Mariposa area. Ranger Heinbach, as a member of a Forestry fire station crew responding to the accident, arrived at the scene at 10:50 p.m. After assessing the victims in one vehicle, he then conducted a primary survey of the driver in the other vehicle, who was pinned in the wreckage and had been reported dead by the emergency personnel already on the scene. Their initial survey revealed the victim was pulseless and not breathing due to an interference in his airway. Although gasoline was leaking from the ruptured gas tank, Ranger Heinbach, a former paramedic, decided there was no time to lay a safety line to protect the vehicle from sparks that could cause a fire or an explosion. Instead, placing his own life in jeopardy, Ranger Heinbach decided to re-check the young man and he crawled into the wreck. After gaining access to the victim and supporting the cervical area, he opened the victim’s airway by extension, and the victim's breathing and a pulse were restored spontaneously. Despite the imminent threat of an explosion at any time, Ranger Heinbach continued this life support technique throughout the additional 30 minutes required to extricate the 16-year old victim from the vehicle. Without Ranger Heinbach's reassessment of the young man and thereafter administering respiration support techniques that revived the victim to life again, together with the Ranger's courage by remaining in a vehicle under threat of explosion to maintain the life-saving techniques while personnel worked to extricate the victim, the young man’s survival and ultimate full recovery would have not been possible.