March 29, 2024
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Ex-Mainer receives Medal of Valor

A man who spent part of his childhood in Mars Hill and still has strong ties to Maine recently earned the highest national award for valor that a public safety officer can receive.

Gene F. Large, 46, battalion chief with the Fort Walton Beach Fire Department in Florida, was in Washington, D.C., last month to receive the Public Safety Officer Medal of Valor from President Bush.

Large, who lived with his mother in Mars Hill during a few years in elementary school while his father was serving in the Vietnam War, said this week that he has many family members who still live in northern Maine.

His mother, Rosella Boyd Large, was born and raised in Mars Hill, though she now lives close to her son in Fort Walton Beach.

Bush and other top government officials honored five public safety officers this year with the medal for going above and beyond the call of duty and exhibiting exceptional courage and unusual swiftness of action.

Large was honored for his courage and quick thinking during an ocean surf rescue on April 7, 2005. Three firefighters and a sheriff’s deputy were trying to rescue a swimmer caught in a rip current among 6- to 8-foot waves, but all were pulled from shore, according to a U.S. Department of Justice Web site.

The Coast Guard and fire rescue craft were unable to attempt a rescue because of the high waves, and Large said he was called in because he had received ocean water rescue team training.

He swam to the five on a rescue board, a move that usually is not attempted in rough seas, and instructed them to lock arms while holding onto the board. They were able to break the rip current’s hold and kick safely to shore.

Large said that despite the dangerous nature of the rescue, his training “just clicked in.”

“The beach was described as a giant washing machine,” he said. “They’d been in the water for quite a while, and the water temperature was cold. I knew the only way they were going to get relief was to get some type of flotation to them.”

The move worked and saved five people whose lives were at grave risk, the Web site said.

Still, Large said he was shocked when someone from the Department of Justice called him while he was in the middle of a training class to tell him he’d been selected for the award.

“My first reaction was, ‘Who is this and what kind of joke is this?'” he remembered. “But then I realized it was the real thing and, from there, I went into shock.”

Large said that receiving the medal has been “kind of surreal” but that he has his family – his wife and two daughters – to keep him grounded.

And his mother?

“Oh, she’s extremely proud of me,” he said.


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