From staff reports
BIRMINGHAM — Zenko Hrynkiw, MD, is a 2014 Healthcare Community All Star, an annual award given by Safety National, a provider of excess workers’ compensation coverage to self-insured employers and self-insured groups nationwide.
Each year, Safety National names three Community All Stars who have done something extraordinary in terms of philanthropy or acts of kindness – beyond their normal daily job requirements.
Alabama Retail Comp Fund Manager Mark Young, left, and Business Process Manager Tessa Lowery, right, present the check for Operation Smile to Dr. Zenko Hrynkiw on behalf of Safety National.
submitted photo
Alabama Retail Comp, the workers’ compensation fund that serves Alabama Retail members, nominated Hyrnkiw for the heroic efforts he made during the debilitating snow and ice storm that took Birmingham by surprise in late January 2014, bringing much of the city and surrounding areas to a standstill. Realizing he would be unable to travel by car, Hrynkiw, who is a member of the Trinity Medical Center medical staff, walked more than six miles through the snow and ice to Trinity Medical Center to perform emergency surgery on a patient with a traumatic brain injury.
Each Community All Star category winner is awarded $10,000 in the form of a scholarship endowment or donation to a 501(c) (3) charity of his or her choice. Hrynkiw requested the donation on his behalf go to Operation Smile, which performs cleft lip and cleft palate surgeries on children.
During the storm, in Trussville, Beverly Elders Cross drove 104 people to their homes, people who would have otherwise been stranded or hiking. Others took people to their homes on four-wheelers.
