An Oswego County Sheriff’s Deputy honored by local and state officials for pulling a woman from a submerged car on Thanksgiving Day, 2005, can now add a federal honor to his list.
Wednesday, the federal Department of Homeland Security awarded Deputy Jeremy Plyler its Certificate of Valor at a ceremony at the Oswego Coast Guard station.
In a news release, the Coast Guard summed up Plyler’s achievement:
Plyler is being recognized for his heroic actions, as a deputy sheriff, when he pulled a woman out of a submerged car. During a winter storm a vehicle went into the water. Plyler arrived and solicited the help of a nearby boater who took him out to a spot where bubbles from the car were surfacing. Plyler dove underwater into 36 degree water, broke the window with his hand and pulled the driver out of the vehicle.
The woman he rescued from the Oneida River in Phoenix, Henrietta Otter, did not survive.
The text of the certificate can be seen here.
Sheriff Reuel Todd presented Plyler with the department’s Medal of Honor at a ceremony at the Oswego County Legislature in January of 2006 (shown below), and he was awarded a Certificate of Exceptional Valor by the office of the Governor.
