HOLLIS Matthew

CITATION

New Zealand Bravery Medal

Special Honours List 29 January 2005

At about 4.00 a.m. on 26 November 1999, Mr Hollis was at a party when a female friend alerted the partygoers to a fire in a house across the road. Mr Hollis and some friends ran across the road and soon realised that the garden hose would be of no help in dousing the flames as the fire had too great a hold. Two friends of Mr Hollis forced a door open and Mr Hollis crawled into the house, followed by another man. By this time the windows in the house were starting to explode, but Mr Hollis was able to hear the screams of the children trapped inside. He buried his head in his jersey to try and protect himself from the smoke and went about finding the trapped children. He managed to find six of them, throwing them out of a window to another man who caught them on the outside of the house. Mr Hollis then left the house, but realising another child was still inside, re–entered the building to rescue it. He went back into the building twice more before the children's mother advised him that all her children were safe.

KNOWN AWARDS

New Zealand Bravery Medal

NOTES

Born

Died

THE PRO PATRIA PROJECT