Sheriff Jim McDonell honored recently 31 members of the Sheriff’s Department for their heroic actions.
Among those presented with Lifesaving medals were two deputies from the Lancaster station, Elijah Goffigan and Erik Riddle, and three deputies assigned to the Palmdale station, Robert Hawkins, Jason Viger and David Nisenoff. Goffigan and Riddle were recognized for saving the life of a female driver after a medical emergency last summer.
On July 25, 2015, Goffigan and Riddle responded to a roadway intersection regarding a woman found lying on the ground. When they arrived, both deputies observed a woman suspended from the open door of a vehicle parked along the curb line. The woman had experienced a medical emergency and had collapsed as she tried to exit the vehicle. The deputies tried to detect but found no pulse; the woman was not breathing and her pupils were dilated. They began CPR and were able to revive her heartbeat and respiration. Paramedics arrived and transported her to the hospital which reported that the woman had suffered a series of strokes.
Hawkins and Viger helped to save the life of an assault victim in late October 2015. They responded to an assault with a deadly weapon and upon their arrival, they found the victim on the ground bleeding profusely from a large laceration on his arm. The deputies applied a tourniquet above the man’s elbow; when the bleeding stopped they packed the wound with gauze and wrapped it in a compression bandage. Paramedics transported the victim to the hospital. In this instance, the chief of surgery and trauma director of Antelope Valley Hospital wrote a letter of commendation, stating that the deputies efforts saved the victim’s life.
Nisenoff saved the live of a heart attack victim. On Christmas Eve 2012, Nisenoff responded to a “person not breathing” call. It was revealed that the husband had briefly left his wife, who had pneumonia, and when he returned he found his wife unresponsive. The couple’s 9-year-old son called the paramedics and the husband had begun CPR and was joined by Nisenoff upon his arrival. Nisenoff began chest compression until paramedics arrived. “Deputy Nisenoff helped keep me stable,” the husband said during a phone call to the Palmdale station. “He was really the key factor in helping save her life and her mental capacity.”
Earlier this month, three deputies from the Palmdale station saved an unconscious driver from his burning vehicle at 20th Street East and Route 8. A passenger was able to exit on his own, but the driver had to be pulled from the flames through the window.
