Community Corner
Red Cross Honors Three Mountain View Men for Heroic Acts
At annual event, Silicon Valley chapter acknowledges county residents for good deeds.
Sometimes people do good deeds and the deed goes unnoticed.
But at the 5th Annual Heroes Celebration Thursday afternoon at the Hyatt Regency in Santa Clara, the Silicon Valley Chapter of the Red Cross recognized a handful of good Samaritans—including three men from Mountain View—the innovative efforts of a company and the emergency preparedness of a city.
"The stories were amazing. You don't plan for an emergency and often time people would ignore people in distress,” said Margaret Abe-Koga. “These people stepped up to save someone's life. They are unsung heroes. Makes me proud to have so many in our city."
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Two Mountain View men, Juan Gomez and Josh Cottrell rushed to perform CPR on a , a Los Altos resident, who experienced a severe heart attack in April 2010.
The two staffers acted immediately according to their training.
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“I felt that what we did, we just did our job,” Gomez said on the video presented at the awards luncheon. “We did what we were trained to do.”
Milpitas-based Cisco Systems Tactical Operations received the Innovative Preparedness Heroes Award for a group of employees trained to respond to natural disasters and other emergencies.
“What Cisco does is, it really tries to bring technology to a level where first responders can use it,” said Catherine Nelson, a member of this Cisco team, on the video. “As a result, you save more lives.”
The City of Palo Alto received the Innovative Preparedness Heroes Award because of how the city has gone to extreme measures to ensure the safety of its residents and employees in the event a disaster hits. Palo Alto has made disaster preparedness a strategic priority.
Seven people received the Good Samaritan Heroes Awards.
San Jose residents James Myers, Sergio Jimenez and Justo Magana-Garcia rescued a driver from a car engulfed in flames.
Robert Bentson, a Gilroy resident and son of a firefighter, heard an explosion and then silence. After no emergency vehicles arrived, he drove to the scene and helped another man rescued a neighbor from a burning building last New Year’s Eve.
“I didn’t really think about it other than to help him and to help whoever was in the unit,” Bentson said on the video. “I just hope someone would do the same for me and my family.”
Bentson said he got the resident out with “about a minute to spare” and didn’t think about it.
Two committees selected the honorees from nearly 50 people nominated throughout Santa Clara County, said Cynthia Shaw, chapter spokeswoman.
Around 500 community members 500, supporting companies, sponsors and volunteers joined the luncheon Thursday to raise money for Red Cross efforts.
“Today is about gratitude, the gratitude to be associated with our volunteers, staff, donors,” said Silicon Valley Chapter CEO Barb Larkin. “Nobody expects a disaster. When our volunteers show up, we receive a lot of gratitude back. We are you. The Red Cross is everybody in this community.”
The other Mountain View honoree, Mike Tyler, a bakery manager at the , helped perform CPR on a man who suffered a heart attack in the store last November. The Mountain View City Council honored him last year.
"It's a little bit overwhelming and a little bit uncomfortable," said Tyler after the event about all of the recognition he’s received. "It seems that I'm getting a lot of attention for doing something you should just do."
To donate to the Red Cross, visit its website at www.siliconvalley-redcross.org.
Click on videos to watch the honorees tell their story.
