The American Red Cross celebrated community heroes today and honored them for their service.
One of the people honored was State Trooper Aaron Beesley, who was killed while he worked to rescue hikers on Mount Olympus. Beesely remained on the cliff while the helicopter rescued the hikers, and Beesely fell to his death.
Another hero honored by the group was Sam Matagi, who used to work at Fox 13. Matagi lost both of his hands while working on power lines in California, and now he makes videos to instruct other amputees.
Sam isn’t one to take on the hero label.
“Even though they're recognizing me as a hero, they're the actual heroes, and also the stuff that I do, I don't feel like a hero,” he said. “It's doing that stuff that helps me get through being a double amputee.”
Matagi calls himself the no-handed bandit, and his videos instruct other amputees on how to perform tasks ranging from putting on athletic socks to playing basketball. The videos can be viewed on Matagi’s YouTube page.
There were 10 categories of awards, including a life-time achievement award, first responder award and a good Samaritan reward.
