On Aug. 30, 2003, Aaron Relick had fallen asleep around 1 a.m. in front of the TV. His 59-year-old father, John, was sleeping in a bedroom of their Latrobe home.

	Martha Rial, Post-Gazette Aaron Relick, left, and his father John Relick in front of their home outside of Latrobe by the 230-year-old Red Oak where Ruth A. Ansel crashed her pickup truck in August 2003. Father and son pulled Ansel from her burning truck and for their heroic efforts will receive the Carnegie Medal (below). Click photo for larger image.

The next thing Aaron, 34, remembered was his mother, Judy, screaming.

A pickup truck, having missed a sharp turn on Bethel Church Road, had crashed into the massive oak tree in the Relick front yard. Running outside after calling 911, the Relick men found the truck's doors jammed, the driver, Ruth A. Ansel, 49, of Ligonier, unconscious and flames in the engine area.

What happened during the next 10 minutes is the stuff of heroes.

That's why the Relicks and 24 other individuals throughout the United States and Canada were named yesterday as recipients of the Carnegie Medal, which recognizes those who risk their lives while saving, or attempting to save, the lives of others.

A third area man, David A. Cushey of Canonsburg, also was recognized.

The bronze medal, and one-time grants of $3,500, have been awarded since 1904 by the Pittsburgh-based Carnegie Hero Fund Commission.

Since then, 8,849 people, including 85 this year, have been recognized. Six of the most recent recipients died during their rescue attempts.

As the Relicks struggled to open the pickup's jammed doors, the fire spread to the passenger side. Two small fire extinguishers were ineffective against the flames.

John Relick finally managed to yank the Ansel's door open, and pull Ansel up onto the seat. But one of her feet was caught between the gas pedal and brake.

With the flames now spreading throughout the vehicle, the two men finally freed the driver's foot and pulled her from the truck. Fifteen seconds later, Aaron Relick said, the pickup was engulfed in flames.

"We were kind of in shock for hours afterward," recalled Relick, a glassworker. "Sometimes we still ask ourselves how we did it."

But he remembers that he and his father didn't have time to think, that saving the driver's life was paramount, not their own risk.

"It's just something you kind of expect anyone to do," he said.

Established by industrialist Andrew Carnegie, the fund has given more than $27 million in grants, scholarship aid, death benefits and continuing assistance. It is the second-oldest foundation in Western Pennsylvania.

The commission will celebrate its centennial next month with the publication of a book, "A Century of Heroes" (University of Pittsburgh Press) a program at Carnegie Music Hall in Oakland, a radio series and other projects.