The good guys thread

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How Troubled Teen Found a 'Forever Family' After 29 Foster Homes

There are cases of hellish abuse – and then there was Jed.

Born to severely mentally ill parents, he was found in rural Robeson County, N.C., at age 3, emaciated and chained to a bed, eating from a dog bowl on the floor. Child protective services tried to place him in foster homes – some good and others troubled – but the traumatized youngster stole, attacked his foster parents and ran away.

"One time Jed came to my office, crying and said, 'Won't I ever have a family? Won't anybody ever love me?' " says Denise Little, a social worker, who worked with Jed for years.

By the time he was 13, Jed had cycled through 29 families, including four who had initially wanted to adopt him. After his 14th birthday, therapists at the Alexander Youth Network (AYN), the Charlotte, N.C., treatment center where Jed had stayed on and off since he was 8, reluctantly concluded there was no more they could do for him and he was transferred to a mental institution.

When AYN volunteers Billy Maddalon, 46, a businessman who had himself spent two years at the facility during his own troubled youth, and his partner, Brooks Shelley, 46, heard Jed was being sent away, they knew they had to try to help him.

"It just felt like somebody had to save him," says Maddalon. "I said, 'We're the right people.' Even if 29 families thought the same thing, we're naive and optimistic. We believe in happy endings."

In October of 2008, after they were certified as foster parents, Jed came to live with Maddalon and Shelley.

"That first night we made spaghetti," Maddalon recalls. "He sat underneath the table and ate with his fingers. He didn't know how to bathe, couldn't write his name."

Despite finally living in a stable home, Jed often ran away.

"I was nervous. I didn't trust anyone," he says. "I didn’t think anyone would ever want me. Everybody had been saying I was a lost cause and I believed it."

But his parents didn't give up, formally adopting him two years after he came to live with them.

"One time he jumped on a train," says Shelley, "and we tracked him on the computer using the GPS on his phone. But when he ran away he would call around dinnertime and ask to come home."

Today, a high school junior at 19, Jed hopes to attend North Carolina State, Maddalon's alma mater.

"No matter how much I acted up, they said I wasn’t going anywhere," says Jed. "They gave me my first birthday party. It’s pretty straightforward. They care about me. I’m not going anywhere. This is my forever home."

[kuhio98]

Chicago – USA

A teenage girl is safe at home thanks to the help of a stranger who didn’t hesitate to act when he saw the girl in trouble.

A 49-year-old North Center man was sitting on his front porch late Monday night when he says he saw a man pushing a beat-up Dodge van down the street with a young girl steering the wheel.

The man went over to help push the van. Once they steered it to a parking spot the Good Samaritan turned to go back home. That’s when he says the young girl jumped out of the van and ran to him, begging for help. She told him the man in the van had tried to rape her.

The Good Samaritan rushed her into his home before her alleged attacker even knew she was gone.

The man is now being called a hero. He didn’t want to be identified but he says he gives all the credit to the teenage girl.

23-year-old Richard Velasco left to go get gasoline for his van and when he returned a short time later, police were there to arrest him. He is being held on $300,000 bail charged with aggravated criminal sexual abuse and attempted criminal sexual assault.

The girl apparently told the man who helped her that she knew Velasco because he was a friend of her family. She said she thought she would be safe with him. The Good Samaritan had a chance to meet the girl’s mother at the police station.

He said she thanked him and said she was very grateful that he rescued her daughter.

[kuhio98]

POLICEMAN ERICH KESSINGER, 29
The right call saves a life

It was supposed to be a birthday celebration—a night of barhopping just after the stroke of midnight Aug. 24, when Kristine Lurowist would officially turn 21. In honor of the occasion, the Penn State University senior consumed 21 shots of booze—one for each year. Fortunately, by the time Lurowist staggered out of her last State College saloon that night, officer Erich Kessinger was on routine duty nearby. "I watched her go from stumbling and staggering to being held up by a guy on each arm to the point where her legs started to drag," says Kessinger. When he approached to help, Lurowist's companions put up a stink. "They said, 'She's 21. We're legal. Get out of here, cop,' " he recalls. Over her friends' initial protests, he called an ambulance. By the time it arrived she was unconscious. When he learned later that night that her blood-alcohol level was an astonishing. 682—more than six times the legal limit for driving—"I never envisioned that she was going to pull through," he says. In fact, she survived only because she was placed on emergency dialysis. In a letter to the local Centre Daily Times, Lurowist thanked Kessinger and wrote, "I am doing fine and am eager to make up the class work missed and pursue my studies." More gratifying were her personal thanks; when Kessinger visited Lurowist the next day in the hospital, she greeted him as the man who saved her life. "It's not like I took a bullet," says Kessinger. "But for someone to say that, well, that makes a career."

[kuhio98]

Man reunites with truck driver who saved his life (Indiana USA)

It was a night like any other along Interstate 65, as truck driver Adam Phillips followed the same route he takes every day. Instead, though, Phillips found himself face-to-face with a terrible car accident and a driver who needed help.

“Right about the time I got around the front of my truck, I could hear him screaming,” Phillips said.

Anthony Ingle’s car had hit a slick spot, spun off the road and slammed into a bridge. Ingle was trapped inside, pinned to the dashboard, as his car caught fire.
“I just kept thinking, ‘I’ve gotta get this kid out of here before it kills him,’” Phillips said.

It took Phillips and several other truck drivers, armed with fire extinguishers and a pry bar, to get Ingle out before the car went completely up in flames.
“I jumped up, grabbed him by the arm and yanked him out of the car,” Phillips said.

Phillips also gave Ingle his jacket, covering him with it as emergency crews arrived. He got back in his truck and drove away, leaving the jacket behind.
A week later, Fox59 spoke to Ingle in his hospital bed. He was hoping to find the owner of the jacket to thank him for his life-saving efforts.
The two got a chance to meet Monday, with Ingle handing over the jacket and thanking Phillips in person.
“I wouldn’t be here right now (without him),” Ingle said.

Phillips hopes other drivers will think about putting an emergency kit and fire extinguisher in their own car, so that if you happen upon an accident you have the tools to help, too. He doesn’t consider himself a hero, just someone who stepped up when it was needed.
“He alive, that’s all I care about,” Phillips said.

Ingle is out of the hospital and in rehabilitation. He’s hoping to get back to work soon.

[kuhio98]

Owner Invents Suit to Keep Her Blind Dog from Running Into Things

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How a Dog's Blood Saved a Poisoned Cat

There's no furry rivalry here. When New Zealand resident Kim Edwards realized her cat Rory had ingested rat poison last week, she turned to a risky paws-ibility to save her pet's life: dog blood.

After bringing Rory to her local veterinary clinic, Edwards was informed the cat needed an immediate blood transfusion to save its life. With not enough time to send a blood sample to the lab to determine Rory's blood type, Edwards called upon her friend Michelle Whitmore for help.

The vet retrieved blood from Whitmore's black Labrador retriever, Macy. The risk at hand: Giving Rory the wrong blood type would lead to instant death.

"People are going to think it sounds pretty dodgy – and it is – but hey, we've been successful and it's saved its life," tending vet Kate Heller tells The New Zealand Herald.

Following the procedure, Rory appears to have bounced back with no further damage and has yet to show any side effects.

"Rory is back to normal," Edwards confirmed, adding jokingly, "and we don't have a cat that barks or fetches the paper."

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