3 Honored With Carnegie Medal For Helping During Gunman's Rampage
MOUNT PLEASANT (KDKA) -- The day was in June 2010.
John Swartz had just returned to his Mount Pleasant Township home when his neighbor's teenage daughter rushed over with blood gushing from her neck.
"She said her dad shot her and her mother," said Swartz. "I put them in the basement and went outside to find out what was going on."
That's when Swartz ran into his neighbor, Raymond Piper, Sr., who armed with a handgun and rifle.
Piper fired at Swartz' truck. The bullet mark is still there today.
Stacey Feiling, 42, was driving home from work on Route 981 when the gunman's injured wife flagged her down for help.
Feiling was killed after being shot in the face at point blank range.
"She gave her life for someone she didn't know," said Swartz.
Another neighbor, Mark Garsteck, dodged shots by the gunman as he kept an eye on kids playing in the backyard.
He and Swartz guarded the area where the gunman was barricaded in a house, until police arrived.
Feiling, Swartz and Garsteck are all now being awarded the Carnegie Medal for their extraordinary acts of heroism; each risking or giving their own lives to help save the lives of others. They are three of just 22 people across the country being honored at this time.
"I don't think I deserve it," said Swartz. "If it happened again today I'd do the same thing."
But it's something Swartz hopes he will never have to do again.
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