James Carney AM

b. ? d. ?

DATE OF AM ACTION: 10/07/1881 Dinapore, India.

James Carney was employed as a subordinate in the Traffic Department of the East India Railway Company when he performed the act of gallantry that led to the award of his Albert Medal.

AM CITATION:

On the 10 July last, a Native shunting porter was coupling up the wagon of a train that was moving through the Station at Dinapore at the rate of two or three miles an hour. A sudden movement of the train knocked the Native down, and he fell half stunned between the rails and underneath the train. The man’s convulsive struggles threatened every moment to throw him under the wheels of the moving wagon. Mr. James Carney, a Subordinate employed in the traffic Department of the East India Railway Company, who was at the time on duty at the Station, jumped down from the platform without hesitation, rushed under the train which was still in motion, and grappling with the injured man, held him down until the train had passed over the two struggling men. In doing this Mr. Carney narrowly escaped being struck upon the forehead by the axle-tree of a pair of wheels as it passed over him. But for this act of gallantry, the Native, in all human probability, would not have escaped with his life.

 

BURIAL LOCATION: UNKNOWN.

LOCATION OF MEDAL: PRIVATELY SOLD. SOLD FOR £5,000 IN MAY 2017.