The rock chimney was 27 feet of near-vertical stone. Slippery. Moss-covered. Nothing to hold onto. Matthew Robert Clark climbed it anyway — no rope, no harness, no gear.

At the top, a 75-year-old man was hanging semiconscious from a tree, bleeding, his circulation being cut off by his own harness straps.

Clark, a 24-year-old electrician from Victoria, British Columbia, got him out. For that, he has now received the Carnegie Medal — the highest civilian honor for heroism in the United States and Canada.

The crash on Mount Prevost

On February 6, 2026, Stephen Parson, 75, crashed his hang glider into a tree in a vertical gully on the side of 2,585-foot Mount Prevost near Duncan, British Columbia — about 200 feet from the summit. He hung in his harness with several fractures, a gashed leg, and a concussion. Worse, the harness straps were digging into his legs and cutting off his circulation, turning the wait for rescue into a race against time.

At the bottom of the mountain, Clark was among several paragliders who had landed in a field when the distress call came over their radios. A pilot was down, high on the mountain.

The climb

Clark didn’t hesitate. He joined two fellow paragliders and a police officer, driving and then hiking up the mountain to the base of a steep incline below the gully where Parson hung.

Then came the hard part. Clark, the officer, and one paraglider climbed a 40-foot, 45-degree slope to the base of a vertical “chimney” rock formation — a narrow crack roughly 27 feet high. There was no way around it, and no equipment to climb it safely.

So Clark free-climbed it. Back pressed against one slippery, mossy wall, feet braced against the other, inching upward on friction and nerve alone. One slip meant a serious fall onto rock.

He made it. Then he climbed another short incline to reach Parson, cut him out of the harness with a knife, and dragged him down the slope to a level area near the edge of the chimney. There, he performed first aid — and waited.

The long wait

Two rescue teams arrived but couldn’t reach the pair’s position. Clark stayed with Parson for several hours, keeping him alive and stable, until a rescue helicopter arrived and lowered a doctor to the scene. The doctor stabilized Parson enough for the crew to hoist him out and fly him to a waiting ambulance. The helicopter then returned for the doctor — and for Clark.

Parson spent eight days in the hospital with a concussion, broken ribs, a fractured wrist, and a deep gash to his knee. The suspension trauma — the damage from hanging in the harness — took weeks of walking and stretching exercises to fully reverse. He made a full recovery.

The medal

Clark’s rescue is one of 16 recognized in the Carnegie Hero Fund Commission’s third award announcement of 2026, issued September 21. The Carnegie Medal has been awarded to 10,597 individuals since Pittsburgh industrialist Andrew Carnegie established the fund in 1904, and it goes only to those who enter extreme danger to save — or attempt to save — the life of another. Each recipient also receives a financial grant; over the fund’s 122-year history, more than $47 million has been paid in grants, scholarships, and assistance.

Among those saved by this quarter’s recipients were five children. The stories range across the continent — a river rescue in Iowa, a chairlift rescue in Virginia — but Clark’s stands out for the sheer physical audacity of that unroped chimney climb.

Why stories like this matter

It’s easy to be cynical about heroism awards — to file them under “nice, but rare.” The Carnegie Fund’s archive tells a different story. Ordinary people, again and again, choosing danger over safety when a stranger needs them. Electricians. Teenagers. Retirees. The medal doesn’t create heroes. It finds them.

There’s a practical lesson tucked inside the inspiration, too. Clark wasn’t reckless — he was a paraglider who understood mountains, assessed the situation, and acted within his capabilities at the edge of them. Courage without competence is just risk. Clark had both.

And there’s a quieter detail worth holding onto: after cutting Parson free and dragging him to safety, Clark stayed. For hours. Heroism is often imagined as a single dramatic act. Much of it is just refusing to leave. It was one of several remarkable feats that day — the same morning a rocket reached orbit for the first time and a marathoner rewrote the record books.

Key takeaways

• The rescue: On Feb. 6, 2026, Matthew Clark, 24, free-climbed a 27-foot rock chimney with no gear to reach crashed hang-glider pilot Stephen Parson, 75, on Mount Prevost, BC.
• The wait: After cutting Parson from his harness and giving first aid, Clark stayed with him for hours until a helicopter could extract them both.
• The outcome: Parson spent eight days in hospital and fully recovered.
• The honor: Clark received the Carnegie Medal, North America’s highest civilian heroism award, in the fund’s third 2026 announcement covering 16 recipients.
• The lesson: Real heroism is usually competence plus the refusal to walk away — not the absence of fear. Days like this one, with a breakthrough drug trial alongside the heroics, are a reminder of what people can do.