Topekan Bryon Snyder, who was shot at BP, one of 18 to win Carnegie Medal for heroism

A 36-year-old Topeka man who helped save the life of a woman during an armed assault in June 2014 is among 18 people honored Tuesday with a Carnegie Medal for heroism.

Bryon Snyder helped rescue a woman who was abducted and threatened with a gun June 30, 2014, in Topeka. Snyder helped the woman, Julia Wilson, run inside a convenience store after she escaped, and he was shot and critically injured while trying to prevent the gunman from entering.

The gunman, Daniel L. Cregut, was arrested after a police standoff at a nearby residence, and Snyder has since recovered.

When Snyder testified in April, he told jurors the impact his injuries have had on him, saying he no longer can run the seven miles a day that he could before he was shot.

Snyder also held up his left and right hands to show jurors that his right thumb that was struck by a bullet is shorter than his left thumb.

Snyder told jurors the joint below the thumbnail had to be removed.

Snyder, who was an employee at Stormont-Vail Regional Health Center at the time of the shooting, had stopped at a BP convenience store to get a Mountain Dew and was walking through the door when he heard a woman screaming for help.

“He’d have to go through me,” Snyder testified in court.

Outside the door, Cregut yelled to be let inside the store, Snyder said. The gunman pulled a .357-Magnum revolver from a pants pocket.

Cregut just held it up and pointed it center mass, Snyder testified, tapping himself on the chest.

“He just smiled, and he shot me right through the door,” said Snyder, who was struck in the right thumb and chest.

After entering the station, the gunman searched for the woman, fired two shots at the bullet-resistant glass surrounding the check-out cage, then knelt next to Snyder, pointed the pistol in his face, demanded to know where the woman was, and threatened to kill him if he didn’t tell him.

Snyder motioned to a back door, then fled outside after Cregut moved away from him.

Cregut was convicted by a jury on April 10 of three counts of attempted murder and nine other felonies. He will be sentenced July 30.

The Carnegie Hero awards honor those who risk their lives for others and are named for Pittsburgh steel magnate and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie. He was inspired to endow an award in his name by stories of heroism during a coal mine disaster in 1904 that killed 181 people, including a miner and an engineer who died trying to rescue others.

This year’s 17 other winners are from Florida, Idaho, Kentucky, Minnesota, Ohio, Nebraska, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Tennessee and Washington.

The commission investigates stories of heroism and awards medals and cash several times a year. It has given away more than $37 million to 9,775 awardees or their families since 1904.

Other winners of Carnegie Medals were:

¦ Christopher Brooks King, 29, of Roswell, N.M., who rescued a 38-year-old woman from a burning home in January 2014.

¦ Martin V. Hohenstein, 51, of Dakota City, Neb., who rescued a 40-year-old from a burning vehicle that crashed in May 2014.

¦ Lester J. Trafford III, 55, of Hampton Bays, N.Y., who saved a 42-year-old man from drowning and attempted to save an 85-year-old man when their commercial fishing boat capsized in the Atlantic Ocean in May 2013.

¦ Craig Randleman, 50, of Bend, Ore., and Thomas Joy, 28, of Spokane, Wash., who rescued an 8-year-old boy from attacking pit bulls in Spokane in April 2014. Joy and Jason Connerley, 28, also of Spokane, then rescued Randleman.

¦ Robert A. Pritchard Jr., 13, of Jacksonville, Fla., rescued a 6-year-old girl from a burning mobile home in June 2014.

¦ Michael D. Campbell, 30, of Hamilton, Ohio, rescued a 21-year-old man from a house that exploded and burned because of a natural gas leak in June 2014.

¦ S. Alexander Smith, 16, of Aloha, Ore., who drowned trying to rescue his 13-year-old brother from drowning in the Row River in Dorena, Ore., in July 2014.

¦ Cheryl A. Crecelius, 46, of Gaston, Ore., who saved a 25-year-old man and helped save another from a crashed and burning vehicle in March 2014.

¦ Jamison S. Koczan, 38, of Winter Park, Fla., and Kimberly Lynn Groves, 52, of Winter Springs, Fla., who saved a woman from being assaulted at gunpoint in a parked vehicle in Winter Park in June 2014.

¦ Meghan O’Reilly-Green, 31, of Perth Amboy, N.J., who helped save a 26-year-old man from drowning in the surf at Hatteras, N.C., in July 2013.

¦ Clinton D. Blackburn, 44, of Morehead, Ky., who saved a 56-year-old jailer from assault by a prisoner he was transporting in Bardstown, Ky., in March 2014.

¦ McKenzie McKay Guffey, 39, of Gainesboro, Tenn., who saved a 45-year-old man from burning in a crashed vehicle in Rye, N.Y., in July 2014.

¦ Ryan Thomas Nelson, 21, of Egan, Minn., who saved a 21-year-old man from burning in a home in Grand Forks, N.D., in March 2014.

¦ Alan Cavener, 54, of Nampa, Idaho, who rescued an elderly man from an out-of-control vehicle in Meridian, Idaho, in August 2013.