THE ONTARIO MEDAL for Police Bravery was recently awarded to six York Regional Police officers to commemorate remarkable bravery.

Constables Sean Boyes, Sean Doran, Gilbert Farquhar, Wade McGhee, James Ward and Gregory Whyte all received recognition for their heroic response to a devastating car accident in Richmond Hill on Oct. 31, 2008.

It had begun as a routine night, with officers patrolling the area to ensure the safety of area trick-ortreaters. The six officers had no way of knowing they would become heroes by the end of the night.

But Ward says he, like the thousands of firefighters, police officers and EMS workers who act courageously in the face of danger, was simply doing his job.

“You’re trained to react,” he says. “You have it in you.”

It was Officer Farquhar who heard the crash and was the first to arrive on the scene,Ward says.

Ward got his call about a car accident near Bayview Avenue and 16th Avenue around 10:30 p.m. He responded immediately, racing even faster after receiving word that the car had burst into flames — with its occupants trapped inside.

When he arrived at the scene, Ward went straight for the fire extinguisher in his trunk. By the time he got to the site of the accident, Boyes and Farquhar were working on extricating the driver from the car. That’s when Ward says he noticed a passenger sitting in the back seat, surrounded by flames.

He immediately snapped into action.

“I just thought: ‘I have to do something to help these people, to get them out of the car,’” he says.

Ward had to break the frame off of the window with his bare hands in order to reach into the car. He was then able to squeeze in up to his waist and managed to pull the girl out through the window as officers emptied fire extinguishers around him to beat back the flames.

Once Ward had lifted the girl halfway out of the car, another officer helped him remove her from the vehicle, and they carried her to a grassy area a safe distance from the burning car.

“Her lips were moving, and I wasn’t sure if she was trying to talk to me. So I just held her hand and let her know that someone was still with her,” he says.

There was one thing that was running through Ward’s mind as he set about rescuing the girl trapped in the back seat.

“I was thinking I want to get her home to her family,” he says.

Ward thinks of his own family often when he’s on duty. He says he knows he wants to go home to his wife and children at the end of the day. As someone who gets paid to protect the public, he says he wants to make sure that everyone else gets to do the same.

Ward sustained first- and second-degree burns on his hands and forearm in his efforts to rescue the girl.

In spite of the officers’ heroic actions, only the driver of the vehicle survived.

Since responding to the accident,Ward says he hasn’t been able to look at a car fire the same way. For him, it’s important to focus on the good things and to open up to others about the bad.

“What I love about this job is walking down the street and seeing little kids and smiling at them and making them realize that the police are there to help them when they’re in trouble,” he says.

Ward is in his 10th year of service for York Regional Police.

While it’s an amazing honour to be recognized for his actions that night, Ward says it’s humbling at the same time.

He feels that all people in his line of work who do amazing community service deserve to be commended.

It was truly a team effort, he says, with everyone springing into action.No one had to be told what to do. Everyone just did what they had to.

“As police officers we’re always taught we have to act and we have to act fast,” he says.

Of his fellow officers who were there that night, “I’m happy that I stood right next to every one of them,”Ward says.