On 16 May 1963 Corporal Snider, a member of the RCAF detachment with the 913th Aircraft Control and Warning Squadron (USAF) at Pagwa, Ontario, was working with several other RCAF airmen in the motor vehicle building. A retaining chain on one of the entrance doors, which weighed approximately one thousand pounds, broke, allowing the door to fall, hit one of the airmen across the shoulders and pin him to the ground in a squatting position. Upon seeing the door fall and hearing the other airman's cries for help, Corporal Snider, without regard for his own safety, crawled beneath the door on his hands and knees, lifted and held it off the injured airman who then fell forward and was pulled clear of the door by others present. Unable to sustain the weight of the door, Corporal Snider attempted to extricate himself but the door fell further, trapping his legs. A front-end loader operating nearby was used then by the others present to lift the door and free Corporal Snider who had suffered painful injuries to both legs. The other airman sustained a severe fracture and compression of a vertebra of the lower spine. Corporal Snider's quick, decisive and prodigious rescue action was performed in the face of a grave threat to his own well-being and, in fact, resulted in severe injuries to him. There is no doubt that this heroic act saved a fellow airman from extreme injuries and paralysis, if not death.