Homeland Security honors Border Patrol agents for valor

The Daily Inter Lake

Two Eureka-based U.S. Border Patrol agents Wednesday received the U.S. Department of Homeland Security's highest award for valor.

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff presented the Secretary's Award of Valor to agents Shawn Goodwin and Brian Phillips.

The pair responded Nov. 26, 2005, to an emergency call about someone trapped inside an overturned and submerged vehicle in Frank Lake, just south of Eureka.

When they arrived, Phillips and Goodwin found the person who made the call - a man who had walked away from the wreck. He was exhausted, suffering from hypothermia, and could confirm someone was trapped inside the submerged vehicle. But he could not tell Goodwin and Phillips where the vehicle entered the lake, according to a U.S. Border Patrol press release.

The pair backtracked the man's footprints to the crash site. The vehicle was under 5 feet of water.

"Demonstrating extraordinary courage," Goodwin and Phillips entered the frigid water and unsuccessfully tried several times get the unconscious victim out of the vehicle, according to the release.

Phillips, 35, joined the Border Patrol in February 1998 at its Yuma, Ariz., station. He was transferred to Montana in November 2002.

Goodwin, 32, joined the patrol in February 1997, working along the Rio Grande before transferring to Montana in September 2003.

This is the second time that a Border Patrol agent stationed in Northwest Montana has received this award.

In 2004, James Bunner of the Whitefish station earned the Secretary's Award for Valor during a training mission in Kyrgyzstan when he helped rescue 22 Americans and Kyrgyzstanis at a helicopter crash site in a remote mountain area.