Leading AWARD RECIPIENTS

Meritorious Citizenship Awards

• Robert Renning, who flagged down a motorist to alert him that his vehicle was on fire, then, when the door and window controls failed, bent the locked door in half with his bare hands and pulled the driver free.

• David Baxley, who ran to a burning vehicle after a crash, cut the driver's seat belt and pulled him out through a window.

• Mark Toms, Laci Silgjord, Sgt. Scott Parker and Robert Zobel, who saved a 77-year-old driver after he had a heart attack and crashed his truck.

Patrol Commendation Award

• Scott County Deputy Michael Turek, who used a tourniquet to save a severely injured woman struck by a car when she got out of her vehicle after hitting a deer.

Lifesaving Award

• Troopers Patric Ignaszewski and Ricardo Magana and Faribault police officer Benjamin Johns, who saved a crash victim from bleeding to death.

• Sgt. Calvin Michaels, who found a missing 4-year-old inside a refrigerator, saving her life.

• Troopers Ben Uzlik and Andrew Gibbs, who, after responding to a medical call on a freeway, applied lifesaving maneuvers that restored a heartbeat to an unresponsive man.

• Trooper Shaun Leshovsky, who stopped life-threatening bleeding from the head of a small child at a crash scene.

• Sgt. Mike Engum, who performed the Heimlich maneuver on fellow trooper Joe Erickson when he was choking on food, saving his life.

• Lt. Brad Bordwell, whose first-aid maneuvers saved a woman passed out in her vehicle.

Meritorious Service Award

• Trooper Brian Beuning and radio communications officers Andrea Fletcher and Brian Gaddis (the last two receive the Chief's Commendation Award for Communications/911) for saving a woman caught in floodwaters during a severe thunderstorm.

• Trooper Mark Lund for putting himself in harm's way while stopping a fleeing suspect using a PIT maneuver.

• Trooper Shaun Stang and Kanabec County Deputy Mark Schafer (who receives the Patrol Commendation Award) for jumping into frigid Mora Lake to save a woman who had driven into the water and her child.

• Sgt. Chris Daas for saving a woman trapped in a burning vehicle.

Exceptional Service Award

• Trooper Philip Jergenson for recommending veteran service options and other specific options during negotiations with a suicidal veteran that prevented him from taking his own life.

• Trooper Thomas Erickson for promoting and showing the State Patrol's "How to Save a Life," "Forever Young" and "Gone Too Soon" videos.

• Trooper Curt Thurmes for reaching more than 6,000 students with the "Gone Too Soon" video in 2014-15.

• Sgt. Dan Holmes for his work in crash reconstruction.

• Commercial vehicle inspector Steve Krueger for his work in commercial-vehicle hazardous-materials enforcement.