American Fork man wins Carnegie Medal

It takes a little coaxing to get 4-year-old Paulina Filippova to climb into Marc Ellison's outstretched arms. The rambunctious, towhead squirms a little in his grasp. But Ellison pulls faces to make her laugh, and before long she's smiling at him coyly and pinching his cheeks.

It has been 10 months since Ellison, 35, of American Fork, held the little girl in his arms like this. The last time, he was huddled just two feet from the edge of a precipice on Mount Timpanogos, shielding her from football-sized rocks tumbling down the mountain side. Those involved in the heroic rescue got together Friday at the Filippova home in Magna.

Paulina calls Ellison simply "the man who held me."

Ellison, and two other men who risked their lives to rescue Paulina, were three of 19 people honored with a Carnegie medal for heroism last week. Industrialist Andrew Carnegie established the award after hearing rescue stories about a mine disaster that killed 181 people in 1904.

Paulina had just taken a tour of Timpanogos Cave with her parents last September when she stepped off the trail and toppled 75 feet over rocks and tree roots before sliding to a stop just feet from a drop-off. She was playing with an empty potato chip can and wasn't looking where she was going.

Vitaly Tsikoza, of Novosibirsk, Russia, was the first to try to reach the girl. He lost his footing on the slippery slope, though, and fell 400 feet to his death.

Paulina held onto a root to keep from slipping until Ellison and Mickey Horak, 26, of Corpus Christi, Texas, climbed down to her and cradled her until a Life Flight helicopter arrived.

It is still uncomfortable for Olga Filippova to think about the accident. It is painful to remember the helplessness she felt as she watched her daughter, just inches from her grasp, slip over the edge of the cliff, she said.

"I didn't do it; I couldn't get down to save my child," she said. "It was impossible for me but not for these men. This is why it is so important to remember them."

She keeps in touch with both Horak and Ellison because, she said, "I think right now I hope I can do something for somebody else."

Paulina's cuts and bruises are healed now, and Friday she ran around her parent's front yard, wildly waving perfectly healthy arms. She crawled on top of a dusty car and pointed a chubby finger at Ellison.

"It's Marc," she said, with a giggle.

Paulina didn't have anything to say about that day on the mountain Friday, but, her mother said the little girl talks about it all the time.

"She is happy they saved her, but she can't be grateful like I can," she said. "She is not old enough to realize."

Filippova said, though, she won't let the little girl forget.