- Awards the medals to the national police Ignacio Bedoya Ruiz and Alejandro Guardado, to the Canine Rescue and Rescue Unit of Arrate and to the director of AEMET, Margarita Marín
- The event will be held on May 16 in the Government Delegation in the Basque Country
The Government Delegation in the Basque Country has awarded the Medals to the Civil Protection Merit of the Government of Spain to the national police Ignacio Bedoya Ruiz and Alejandro Guardado Arce, to the Canine Rescue and Rescue Unit of Arrate and the territorial director of Aemet, Margarita Martín Jiménez, in recognition and support of the work carried out throughout 2023.
“This year’s medals”, says the delegate of the Government, Marisol Garmendia, “distinguish two anonymous heroes, which it is difficult to differentiate, but who are among us. It is the agents of the National Police Ignacio Bedoya Roiz and Alejandro Guardado Arce, who have saved the lives of two bathers and a man in a golf club when they were off duty. Both went beyond their duty because this was required by their conscience. In addition, this edition also recognizes the trajectory of the meteorologist Margarita Martín. Having accurate and accurate information about the evolution of time in advance makes the difference between the life and death of thousands of people. Professionals such as Margarita Martín, who has dedicated her entire life to informing and training about the climate until she becomes a reference, contribute to making our region and the world better prepared every day to face and manage the risk in the face of the extreme climatic phenomena that we already suffer and those that are to come. And because every minute can be worth a living, we also reward a singular initiative: an archive of odors, a bank of smell. The Canine Rescue and Rescue Unit of Arrate has been working for several years in the collection of individual body odors to create a database with them, preserve them and be able to use them in searches for missing persons with dogs. The three winners are examples of the vocation and commitment to public service.”
The award of these medals will be held next Thursday, May 16 in Vitoria, at the headquarters of the Delegation of the Government of Spain in the Basque Country.
1.- Rescues by National Police
To the national police Ignacio Bedoya Roiz (assigned to the Provincial Commissariat of San Sebastián), who participated in the rescue of two bathers from a beach in Donosti, and to Alejandro Guardado Arce (assigned to the Commissariat of Irun), who saved the life of a man in a golf club in Gijón.
The first event occurred on the beach of Zurriola, when agent Ignacio Bedoya Roiz, who was surfing at the time, assisted a pair of bathers who were struggling unsuccessfully to reach the shore. The woman rescued at sea recognized the agent because two weeks earlier she had attended him at the Aliens Documentation Office.
The other intervention took place at a golf club in Gijón, when police officer Alejandro Guardado Arce performed for more than twenty-five minutes a cardiac massage to one of the members who had suffered a cardiopulmonary arrest.
2.- Canine Rescue and Rescue Unit of Arrate
The Canine Rescue and Rescue Unit of Arrate was founded in 2011 by Valeriano de la Calle. We must highlight the creation of the Odour Bank so that, with the help of tracking dogs, it is possible to speed up the search for an injured or missing person.
Grisaleña (Burgos) has only 35 neighbors, but has the honor of being the first locality in the world to have a Bank of Smell (July 2019). In the Alavese municipalities of Berantevilla and Armiñon, two Odour Banks have also subsequently been created for use in disappearances.
The samples are stored in sealed boats in such a way that, with the collaboration of the Canine Rescue and Rescue Unit of Arrate, people who have been injured or disappeared can be located more quickly.
The Odour Bank project started in 2016 when the first samples were collected and tested three years later. They currently retain almost 2,000 samples.
3.- Margarita Martín Jiménez, director of AEMET in the Basque Country
Margarita Martín has developed an intense and necessary activity in the field of meteorology in Gipuzkoa, specifically in the field of the prediction of adverse phenomena and preventive warnings. She has a degree in Physical Sciences and has been developing her professional career as a meteorologist for 40 years.
This medal rewards the elaboration, supply and dissemination of meteorological information and predictions of general interest to citizens and the issuance of warnings and predictions of meteorological phenomena that may affect the safety of people and material goods. All this is framed within the National Plan for the Prediction and Monitoring of Adverse Meteorological Phenomena, called Meteoalert, a plan that currently constitutes an essential tool for the prevention and warnings of hydrometeorological risks.
It is also worth highlighting its extensive informative work and the approach of meteorology to the population through the holding of conferences for the World Meteorological Day, press conferences and exhibitions. Another of the fields where he has developed an intense activity is at the Meteorological and Maritime Observatory of San Sebastián-Igueldo, where guided and educational visits are made to the students of Gipuzkoan schools and institutes.
Within this culture of prevention, it is worth highlighting the collaboration since 2006 between the Meteorological Observatory with notices on the state of the sea to coastal navigation with daily parts, aimed at Salvamento Marítimo and with the pilots of Bilbao, Pasaia and the Civil Guard of the Sea.