BETHEL – For Ovide “Buddy” Richard, it wasn’t such a big deal pulling an injured woman away from a burning vehicle.
But others see his action as heroic. He has just become the first police officer in Bethel to be officially recognized for bravery by the Maine Chiefs of Police Association, Police Chief Alan Carr said Monday.
Carr and Town Manager Scott Cole met Richard on Monday morning at the town offices to pin a medal on his uniform while Richard’s wife and two children looked on.
“In law enforcement, it’s part of their life to save another person’s life. It’s part of our job,” Carr said. “But it still takes guts and fortitude to go forward and help someone,” especially if that someone is lying within feet of a flaming car with a gas tank that could explode any second.
After Richard saved Jennifer Soares, 43, of Berlin, N.H., Carr submitted an application on his behalf to the Maine Chiefs of Police Association. An awards committee selected Richard to be one of 23 recipients in Maine for bravery citations, Carr said.
The association did not return a phone call Monday, a holiday.
“Every once in a while there’s an extraordinary event that requires an extraordinary response,” Cole said shortly after the pinning.
“I didn’t think at the time it was a big deal,” Richard said in an interview after the ceremony.
Richard responded to a car accident on North Road early in the morning last December and found a car fully engulfed in flames. He said he noticed a woman in a ditch, lying about 4 feet from the back of the vehicle. Flames were rushing over her body, but she had not caught on fire.
“She appeared to be unconscious,” he said. He rushed to his police car and grabbed a fire extinguisher, but the extinguisher failed.
Instead, he yelled at her, and she opened her eyes.
“I actually got her to speak to me, and I asked her to crawl over to me,” Richard said.
But she was too injured to move. He asked her to turn over on her back, and when she did, Richard dragged her away by her hands.
Assisting people is part of the job as a police officer, he said. “You have to want to help people.”
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