Retired Army NCO receives Soldier's Medal for rescuing baby from car crash

A year after he climbed through the smashed rear window of an overturned car to rescue a sick infant, a retired noncommissioned officer received the Army's highest award for peacetime actions at a ceremony in his native Oklahoma.

Retired Sgt. 1st. Class Joshua Farrell received the Soldier's Medal on Thursday at a VFW post in Tulsa, Oklahoma, according to 1st Theater Sustainment Command spokeswoman Staff Sgt. Josephine Pride. Farrell, who was stationed at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, moved to Tulsa after his retirement.

Farrell, a former infantryman, was an operations NCO with Special Troops Battalion, 1st Theater Sustainment Command at Fort Bragg in August 2015. Driving home in a rainstorm on Aug. 18, he saw a silver car skid out and off the highway after hitting a puddle.

“As soldiers, we’re conditioned to run to the sound of gunfire sort of speak, to inject ourselves in a situation where we can do the most good," he said in an Army release last year. "That day there was no gunfire, but there was an emergency."

The baby's mother, Caitlin Coffeen, had been able to get herself out, but her five-month-old son Liam was still strapped in his car seat in the overturned car. Coffeen, whose husband 1st Lt. Brian Coffeen was attached to the 82nd Sustainment Brigade, had been on her way to take Liam to the emergency room.

Farrell maneuvered his way in through the back window, unbuckled the car seat and carried the baby to safety.

“It’s the human thing to do -- to help someone else in their time of need,” Farrell said.