A Kailua-Kona man who punched a shark and saved a surfer friend has been awarded a Carnegie Medal for heroism.
Brian Wargo, 45, is among 22 honorees to be formally announced today.
The Carnegie Hero awards are named for Pittsburgh steel magnate and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie, who was inspired by stories of heroism during a coal mine disaster that killed 181 people, including a miner and an engineer who died trying to rescue others.
The commission investigates stories of heroism and awards medals and cash several times a year. It has given away $37.5 million to 9,797 awardees or their families since 1904.
Wargo is honored for saving 34-year-old McKenzie Clark, also of Kailua-Kona, who was gripped in a struggle with a tiger shark off North Kohala. Clark made it out of the encounter with the 12- to 15-foot tiger shark with injuries only to fingers and a hand, probably because of Wargo’s wrestling the shark and beating it with his fist.
Clark was paddling her surfboard in murky waters off Halaula Lighthouse at Keawaeli Bay when the shark made its first pass. The next moments unfolded in slow motion for Wargo, who is captain of Bite Me Sportfishing in Kailua-Kona.
“There is no question what its intent was,” Wargo said in an interview shortly after the attack. “I’m a fisherman and I’ve dealt with big animals … Its intent was to eat my friend right in front of me and I wasn’t going to let that happen.”
Wargo grabbed the dorsal fin with both hands and the shark pulled him off the board.
“I got my right hand free and I started hitting it as hard as I could between the gills and the dorsal fin,” Wargo said.
Clark received 20 stitches to her hand, middle finger and ring finger , which was scraped to the bone and required a skin graft.
The shark left a bite in the board measuring 15-by-9 inches, Wargo said.
Four Carnegie Medals are being awarded posthumously, including to a Nevada teacher who stood down a gun-wielding student and people in Kentucky, Illinois and Minnesota who died trying to save drowning victims.
A Canadian man receiving an award was injured while using a snow shovel to ward off a polar bear attacking a woman.
Other honorees saved people from drowning, from fires and from a pit bull attack.