BETWEEN them they have rescued a tiny baby, run into a burning building to rescue the occupants, disarmed a man who was trying to harm himself and captured car thieves after a high-speed chase.
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But the group of Orange police officers honoured at an award ceremony to acknowledge their commitment to community protection, say it’s all in a day’s work.
They are humble about their awards saying every day all their colleagues put their safety on the line while on the job.
“I feel embarrassed because every day police are called upon to do extraordinary things and they do this without the recognition we have received,” said Senior Constable Leon Corcoran.
Senior Constable Corcoran and Senior Constable Jason Benson kicked in the door of a burning unit in Dalton Street on December 17 last year after being told someone was inside.
After being beaten back by the thick smoke, they put wet towels over their heads and entered the building a second time on their hands and knees looking for the occupant. They ran out of the building just as the ceiling collapsed and the fire brigade arrived.
Senior Constable Benson acknowledged he was scared.
“Of course you have fear in a situation like that but it’s our job and we’d been told someone was inside,” he said.
Twelve months earlier Sergeant Brendon Turner along with Senior Constable Corcoran and Constables James Van Cornwell and Adam Strachan disarmed a blood-soaked man in the city, who had torched his vehicle and intended to kill himself.
Earlier this year in Lords Place Senior Constable Corcoran along with Senior Constable Brett Sammitt, and Senior Constable Chris Tomlinson negotiated with an aggressive father who, for more than half an hour, threatened to drop his tiny baby on the ground. While a police negotiator was on the way, the officers managed to distract the father and Senior Constable Corcoran snatched the tiny baby and ran with it to safety.
“It was such a cold day and I just kept thinking the baby was so young and it wasn’t wrapped up. He [the father] just kept on saying he would drop it,” said Senior Constable Sammitt.
In the final incident to be recognised at the award ceremony, senior constables Sammitt, Corcoran, Benson and Constable Melissa Phillips were commended for their roles in a high-speed police pursuit in April this year.
The officers caught four well-known car thieves who had been operating in the Orange area.
