Three Pikesville Police Officers To Be Honored for Heroism, Will Meet President Obama

Three Baltimore County police officers based in Pikesville are set to be honored for their heroism tomorrow by the National Association for Police Organizations and are scheduled to meet President Barack Obama.

The officers—Michael B. Forish, Michael Gerard Lynch and Zachary J. Small—are scheduled to receive their awards at the 18th annual TOP COPS Awards event, which will be held at 7:30 p.m. tomorrow at the Warner Theatre in Washington, D.C. 

In addition to receiving the awards, the officers from Pikesville's Precinct 4 are scheduled to travel to the White House to meet Obama, according to a news release from the Baltimore County Police Department.

The three officers are being honored for saving a man from a burning Pikesville house on the morning of Oct. 31.

"The entire time while removing the victim, later identified as Heulitt Edward Dunston, 57, the officers completely disregarded their own personal safety as the windows shattered and the house literally burned down around them," the release states.

It was about 5:35 a.m. Oct. 31 when Forish, Lynch and Small went to a dwelling fire in the 100 block of Clarendon Ave. in Pikesville. "As they pulled up to the scene, they could see an upstairs bedroom fully engulfed in flames," the release states. "A distraught man on the lawn shouted at the officers that his father, who was paralyzed from the waist down, was trapped on the top floor bedroom where the flames had been seen.

"The officers without hesitation ran into the flaming house and heard a man screaming for help. ... [they] somehow managed to navigate their way blindly, through the unfamiliar building, to the stairway ... found a large man trapped at the top of the stairs, with his shirt smoldering," the release states.

The man was fading in and out of consciousness while Lynch, "grabbed a garden hose and gave the others cover by fighting the blaze at the top of the stairs," according to the release.

As the house burned down around them, "the officers were eventually able to squeeze into a very small area and as a team hoist the victim out of his confined space and slowly, laboriously, ease him down the stairs."

See photos and a video of the fire.