Engineering Technician I

Department of Transportation

6/13/1965

Special Act Award (Gold)

On June 13, 1965, Mr. Martindale was alerted of a capsized boat with two small children aboard out on Whiskeytown Lake, just west of Redding. Mr. Martindale sailed out to the boat with another Highway Division employee. They saw a girl's face through the porthole of the forward portion of the cabin, the only part of the boat supported by an air pocket. Mr. Martindale dove 10 feet under water and under the craft, and entered a water-filled cabin. Floating picnic gear and other impediments at first kept him from reaching the child. He found the 11-year-old girl barely conscious with her head almost up against the cabin’s ceiling. He managed to grab her and then pushed her through a small doorway with his feet and out the cabin door. He pushed her toward the surface, where the girl was plucked from the water by other rescuers. Mr. Martindale then returned to look for the 3-year old girl but failed to find her. Nearly collapsing from asphyxiation by the gasoline fumes Mr. Martindale inhaled that filled the vitally small air pocket, he found his way back to the surface and was pulled out. When the craft was later righted again, the 3-year-old girl’s body was found beneath the cruiser’s flying bridge. Mr. Martindale risked his own life, exposed himself to potentially deadly gasoline fumes for an extended period of time, and suffered injury from near asphyxiation when he dove into the lake and saved the life of one of the small girls that day. Mr. Martindale’s actions were truly an extraordinary, selfless heroic deed. On April 24, 1968, he was awarded the state’s highest honor, the Medal of Valor for his actions. Additionally, Mr. Martindale was also awarded a Silver Medal accompanied by $1,000 by the national Carnegie Hero Fund Foundation at Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.