DORAL, Florida — The Miami-Dade Sheriff's Office honored one of its lieutenants and a local school coach after separate emergencies in which each man moved quickly to help save a life.
Lt. Luis Correa Jr. was recognized for pulling a badly injured worker to safety after a manhole explosion, while physical education teacher William Varas was honored for helping a choking student, according to a July 30 report from WSVN 7News.
Watch the Miami-Dade recognition ceremony
WSVN's report includes footage from the Miami-Dade Sheriff's Office ceremony and interviews about both lifesaving actions. The publisher-hosted player is embedded below with a direct source-page fallback.
Video source: Miami-Dade Sheriff's Office ceremony footage and interviews published by WSVN 7News. Watch the report on WSVN if the embedded player does not load.
Lieutenant pulled an injured worker away from danger
WSVN reported that Correa was fueling his sheriff's office cruiser at a county facility in Southwest Miami-Dade in June when a nearby manhole exploded. Two workers were at the location; one was killed and the other was seriously injured.
Correa went toward the scene and moved the surviving worker to a safer location where emergency medical personnel could begin care. During the ceremony, an MDSO representative said the lieutenant acted “without a moment's notice” and helped make lifesaving treatment possible.
The sheriff's office named Correa its Distinguished Deputy of the Month and presented him with a Silver Medal of Valor and a lifesaving award, according to WSVN.
ThinBlueNews is not identifying the workers because the local report reviewed for this article did not name them. This account also avoids speculating about the cause of the explosion or any investigation into it.
Coach recognized after saving a choking student
Varas, a physical education teacher at Lighthouse Ministry School, faced a different emergency in early May. WSVN reported that a bottle cap became lodged in a student's throat after the child stopped for water during class.
The student went to Varas for help. He recognized the choking emergency and performed abdominal thrusts until the cap was dislodged and the child could breathe again.
MDSO recognized Varas as its first Citizen of the Month. In remarks carried by WSVN, the coach said he acted as he believed anyone would for a child and simply did his job.
Two forms of service, one community lesson
Miami-Dade Sheriff Rosie Cordero-Stutz used the joint recognition to underscore that people across the community can step forward in difficult moments. The ceremony placed a sworn law-enforcement leader and a civilian educator side by side, highlighting both trained public service and a bystander's readiness to act.
The two emergencies were unrelated, but the outcomes share the same practical lesson: recognizing danger, moving quickly and getting lifesaving care started can change what happens next.
Readers can find more verified acts of service in ThinBlueNews' police hero stories, first responder heroes, first responder news and positive police news sections.
Sources, video and image attribution
- WSVN 7News — “MDSO recognizes deputy, school coach for heroic actions that saved lives,” published July 30, 2026. The local report provides the ceremony footage, MDSO remarks, direct interviews, names, award details and accounts of both emergencies used in this original aggregation.
Featured-image note: The image is a true frame from WSVN's video of the Miami-Dade Sheriff's Office ceremony. It shows Varas receiving recognition and is not a generated scene, recreation or unrelated representative image. ThinBlueNews cropped the 960 × 540 source frame to the site's 1200 × 630 featured-image format without adding or removing people or incident details.
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