Highway Engineering Technician

Department of Transportation

5/9/1971

Special Act Award (Gold)

In September of 1971, Edward A. Rothman, a 69-year-old San Diego Highway Engineering Technician, became the oldest state employee to receive California’s highest award for valor. Mr. Rothman was presented the Medal of Valor for saving the life of a 10-year-old boy on May 9, 1971 who was being sucked into a three-foot drainage pipe into which water was flowing from a nearby pool. At the time of the incident, Mr. Rothman was walking with his two grandchildren when he heard screams for help from a nearby pool construction zone. Running to the scene, he found two boys attempting to help another from being drawn by the fast-moving water into the drainage pipe. Disregarding the obvious danger, he jumped in and attempted to pull the boy to safety, but the suction was too great for Mr. Rothman, a 150-pound, five-foot, seven-inch man. Buffeted by the swiftly flowing water, he nevertheless clung to the boy for more than half an hour when help finally arrived. It then took two men, straining on a garden hose looped around the boy, to pull him to safety. His own strength sapped by the ordeal, Mr. Rothman also had to be helped from the pool. Governor Ronald Reagan wrote on the official citation accompanying the Award: “his performance was an extraordinary act of heroism at great risk to his own safety and life, and extended far above and beyond the call of duty and service.” Mr. Rothman retired from state service just short of his seventieth birthday.