Wrenshall man who died in rescue receives medal

Star Tribune

Last update: July 1, 2009 - 9:28 PM

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A man from Wrenshall, Minn., has been posthumously awarded a Carnegie medal for heroism for his attempt to save three men trapped in a landfill pit filled with toxic fumes near Superior, Wis.

Paul E. Cossalter was 41 in November 2007 when he tried to rescue the other men. All four died, succumbing to deadly hydrogen sulfide fumes.

The men had been trying to fix a sewer in a hole 3 feet in diameter and at least a dozen feet deep at a privately owned landfill. The level of fumes in the pit was so high that it would have immediately rendered the men unconscious, authorities said at the time.

Cossalter was working for a contractor at the site. His hometown is just south of Jay Cooke State Park on the Minnesota-Wisconsin border.

At the time of the accident, Douglas County Sheriff Thomas Dalbec described what apparently happened: "First one goes down and is overcome by gas and drops or falls, and the second one looking down from above sees the first one, figures he can go down to rescue. Same thing happens to him, the third one same thing and fourth one same thing happens."

Pittsburgh steel baron Andrew Carnegie started the fund in 1904 after hearing rescue stories from a mine disaster that killed 181 people. Since then, $31.5 million has been awarded to 9,284 people. Medalists, or their heirs, receive $6,000.

Of the 22 people given the award, three others died while trying to rescue others.

BOB VON STERNBERG AND ASSOCIATED PRESS

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