WASHINGTON — Retiring President Biden will present the Medal of Valor Friday to two FDNY heroes who saved New Yorkers from raging fires.
Biden, 82, will present the nation’s highest award for public safety officers to Lt. John Vanderstar and firefighter Brendan Gaffney.
Vanderstar rushed into action in October 2022 when a neighbor banged on his Bronx firehouse’s door to alert him to a fire up the street — arriving to hear a woman and child in a fifth-floor apartment who were trapped.
Vanderstar “ducked below the fire in his full protective gear and self-contained breathing apparatus and shot down the hallway to the rear bedroom and found an adult woman and a child,” a colleague, Capt. Stephen Elliott told The Post at the time.
He carried the child down the stairs while two colleagues carried the woman.
“If [the mother and child] were in that apartment for another minute or two, they most likely had no chance of survival,” Elliot said. “It’s an amazing rescue.”
Gaffney similarly risked his life in February 2023 when he rushed into a burning apartment building to save an unconscious pregnant woman and child.
“He first shielded the child with his own body to get him to safety. Gaffney then ran through the fire again and rescued the woman. He performed CPR on the woman while waiting for paramedics. The woman and child both survived,” the White House said in a press release announcing the awards.
The evening medal ceremony will also honor five Nashville police officers who responded to the Covenant School mass shooting in 2023 and to Lincoln, Neb., police Sgt. Tu Tran saved a woman trapped inside a car from a frigid pond.
Biden will also award the Medal of Honor posthumously to six Army soldiers: Private Bruno R. Orig, Private First Class Wataru Nakamura, Corporal Fred B. McGee, Private First Class Charles R. Johnson, retired General Richard E. Cavazos, Captain Hugh R. Nelson, Jr.
Army Specialist Fourth Class Kenneth J. David will also receive the high honor.
