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Metro Officers Receive Medal Of Honor

By STEPHANIE BUNKER

Moapa Valley Progress

Pictured l to r Police officers Justin Eberling, Scott Rowley, Joseph Harris, Derek Fellig, Christopher Kohntopp and William Harder received the Medal of Honor for their performance in the line of duty during a house fire incident in Las Vegas. Rowley and Kohntopp are Moapa Valley residents.

Two Metro officers who reside in the Moapa Valley were awarded with the Medal Of Honor for their performance during a horrific house fire incident in Las Vegas last September. These two were part of a larger group of six officers who received the award during a ceremony on Friday, July 19 for responding to this incident.

Logandale resident Scott Rowley and Overton resident Chris Kohntopp responded quickly and did an honorable job under heart-rending circumstances. Although these individuals were given the award for that particular incident, to them it also represents bravery and honor for the past and future of their careers in Metro.

The highlighted incident took place on September 27, 2012. Metro Officer Joseph Harris and North Las Vegas Officer Derek Fellig heard an explosion in the area he was patrolling and went to investigate.

Upon arriving at the scene the officers found a house on Bartlett Street to be on fire. The wife and mother of the house was in the yard and she begged the officers to save her teenage son who was trapped inside.

Meanwhile, Metro Officers Rowley and Kohntopp had seen the plume of smoke and recognized it as a house fire. They also rushed to the scene.

“When we showed up the entire house was engulfed in flames,” Kohntopp said in an interview with the Progress last week. “We had two choices, we could call 911 like everyone else or try to do something about it.”

The officers found the mother in the backyard trying to grab a garden hose to spray on the flames. After moving her to safety, Officer Harris heard a cry for help from the teenage boy. The officers sprang into action.

They made several attempts to pry the security bars off the window where the boy was trapped. The only tools they had were their hands and batons. They tried to pry the bars off with their batons, but the smoke became to thick and the bars wouldn’t budge.

“There was no way we could get into the house,” Kohntopp said. The boy died from smoke inhalation.”.

The blaze had begun due to a mishap where the husband and father of the household was working on a boat in the driveway. He was working on an electric pump with gas fumes nearby, when the fumes hit the electric pump it caused the explosion and the man died instantly.

The fire immediately ignited the front of the house.

“The front door was the first to catch on fire and it was the only exit,” Rowley said in an interview. “There was no back door, the only options were the front door and the windows and that’s why the kid couldn’t get out.”

Rowley and Kohntopp did what they could to help the family.

“In the end we couldn’t do anything,” Rowley said, “When we went there we knew someone was trapped inside and our objective was to get him out. When we couldn’t get him out it was kind of difficult to receive an award for it.”

Although it was hard for the officers to receive the award, they still appreciated the recognition.

“It was nice for the department to recognize us,” Kohntopp said. “But I don’t feel deserving of the award.”

Officer Rowley felt the same way.

“It’s nice to be recognized,” he said. “So often we do things beyond that, which we don’t get recognized for.”

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