DATE: Sunday, September 21, 1997            TAG: 9709210082

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B8   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS 

DATELINE: NEWPORT NEWS                      LENGTH:   31 lines

ISLE OF WIGHT MAN HONORED FOR RESCUE

An Isle of Wight man who jumped from the James River Bridge to save a despondent woman from drowning a year ago has received the Carnegie Medal for Heroism.

``God just blessed me with an opportunity to help someone else,'' Edward W. Shorter said Friday, shortly after he was told the Carnegie Hero Fund Commission had named him one of the 19 latest recipients of the bronze medal.

``I'm excited and pleased someone thought so highly of what I did,'' he said.

A mechanical planner at the Surry Nuclear Power Station, he is the only recipient from Virginia.

Shorter is 46, a single parent of three and a grandfather.

The commission recognizes people from the United States and Canada who risk their lives ``to an extraordinary degree while saving or attempting to save the lives of others,'' spokesman Walter F. Rutkowski said.

In September 1996, Shorter was driving south on Route 17 across the bridge to his Gatling Pointe home about 7 p.m. when he spotted a woman crouched on the rail, gazing into the water. The woman leaped as Shorter pulled up behind her car.

He jumped into the water and swam to the woman, who resisted his attempts to help her. Both were eventually picked up by fishermen. KEYWORDS: HEROE

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