The good guys thread

[kuhio98]

SECURITY TECHNICIAN GUY BURNETT, 27
He rescues two trapped babies from a roadside canal

Last June 13 was a brilliant Sunday in South Florida, and Claudia Cox, in the backseat of a friend's Mitsubishi, was going from Miami to Naples to visit her boyfriend Otasha Barrett with their year-old twin daughters, Kendia and Kenisha, strapped into car seats beside her. Heading west through the Everglades on 1-75, Cox, 23, a hospital lab assistant, was singing gospel tunes with her cousin Simone Hyatt, who was sitting in front with driver Tashana Brown. But just after 3 p.m. a front tire blew, and the car crashed through a fence, flipping over and landing upside down in an alligator-infested canal. "All I could think was 'I'm going to die,' " says Cox. "Then I thought, 'Please, God, don't let anything happen to my babies.' "

The answer to her prayers was Guy Burnett, who had been just minutes behind Cox, driving with his wife and two children. Burnett pulled over and saw that all three women were out of the car, but that Cox was standing in the water screaming, "My babies!" Then a serviceman for a security firm, Burnett dove into the murky canal and tried vainly to open the car doors. "It was like pea soup," he recalls. "I wouldn't have seen my hand if I'd held it in front of my face." Finally, finding an open window, he unlocked a door and freed Kenisha from her car seat and brought her to safety. That's when he heard Cox screaming, "There's two of them!" Diving back in, he found Kendia and brought her to the surface. But it seemed too late. "She was like a rag doll," Burnett says. Cox's friend Brown, a flight attendant with first aid training, began administering CPR. Then Burnett, who learned the technique as a lifeguard in high school, took over. "C'mon, baby, breathe!" he exhorted. After a couple of minutes, Kendia whimpered. "That progressed to a good cry," he says. "It was like music to my ears."

[kuhio98]

An AWOL cockatiel is watched over from above until he turns himself in.

By Kim, Schenectady, New York

"Rocko! Get back here!” I heard Dad calling to our one-year-old cockatiel from the front porch. Dad whistled the special high-pitched tune he used to communicate with him. Normally Rocko whistled the song right back. Not this time. Rocko must have flown the coop! I thought, running to the porch.

“I was cleaning Rocko’s cage,” Dad said. “He got excited and flew out.”

I went into the yard and spied Rocko in a neighbor’s tree. Dad and I followed him from tree to tree, whistling. “He’s probably afraid it’s not us,” Dad said. Eventually we lost sight of Rocko’s gray and white feathers.

After driving around the neighborhood late into the night, we had to accept that Rocko was gone. I hoped angels flew with him, keeping him safe.

A week later a neighbor surprised us. “I just saw Rocko on the news,” she said. “During a segment on the police academy, he landed on a recruit’s hat!”

We raced over to the police academy. When we arrived Dad whistled his special song. Rocko perked his head up and whistled right back. What safer place for angels to have led him?

[kuhio98]

Whistle Necklace

Giving back never looked so good. This necklace from Falling Whistles is the perfect conversation piece for awareness. It comes in different metals, so you can add it to any outfit -- becoming a whistle blower for peace.

One hundred percent of proceeds go toward helping war-affected kids in the Democratic Republic of Congo through rehabilitation programs and stateside advocacy.

Buy it now at store.fallingwhistles.com, $34

[kuhio98]

Tampa, Florida -- A mother will do most anything for her child and one Tampa woman proves that by getting her head shaved! But there's much more to Jasmine Barrios' buzz cut. She's making a difference for kids across the country, as well as her own son.

Her son Nester has been diagnosed with cancer. "Nester is 8. When he was 7, he was diagnosed with thyroid cancer," says Barrios. "Thyroid cancer in kids is not very common. There's a one in a million chance for a child in his group to get thyroid cancer, therefore the awareness for it isn't there."

On average, 46 mothers each weekday learn their child has cancer. Barrios is part of the group "46 Mommas," a group that raises money for childhood cancer research. That's also how she ended up with her new hairdo. She traveled to San Antonio to take part in the 'Shave for the Brave' fundraiser.

"It's fun, it's liberating. You feel free and I'm glad I did it and I'm glad I am one of the 46 mommas," said Barrios.

Nester is doing well and Barrios said he wants to be a soldier like his dad, "He wears the uniform proudly and he wears it correctly so he shows the Army pride. I told him he already is a soldier, he's just a soldier fighting cancer."

Barrios has raised several hundred dollars already this year for childhood cancer research and knows there is much more to be done.

"I feel like we could at least tell our story and let people know there are kids out there who are fighting. We're fortunate that so far Nester is doing phenomenal, but there are kids out there who are losing their battles and that's why we fight."

Collectively "46 Mommas" IS making a difference -- raising more than million dollars over the last three years.

[kuhio98]

Bus driver who caught plunging Brooklyn child brushes off 'hero' talk
A veteran New York City bus driver on Tuesday played down any claims of heroism for snagging a 7-year-old girl who fell three stories from a Brooklyn apartment building a day earlier.

Steve St. Bernard, 52, says neighborhood children alerted him to the girl standing on top of a window air-conditioning unit, and he positioned himself underneath her.

"I asked God ... I said, 'Let me catch her, please. Don't let me miss,'" the 10-year veteran of the Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) told CNN. "I don't play baseball. I'm not a sportsman. I don't want to miss."

St. Bernard said the girl was up above him for an excruciating seven minutes before she fell into his arms.

The incident occurred Monday afternoon and was captured on amateur video, which soon surfaced online. It shows the girl, who neighbors said is a special-needs child, standing and apparently dancing on the air-conditioner, losing her balance and falling. One of at least two people standing on the sidewalk beneath her reaches out and catches her before she hits the ground.

"It felt like a ton of bricks ... like a whole bag of rocks on me," St. Bernard said. "We went down. She touched the floor but the impact wasn't on her. It was me and her going down. I guess I absorbed the blow."

Bernard and the girl were treated at a local hospital and released. Bernard hurt his arm and is now wearing a sling and can't go to work.

Neighbors and onlookers have since hailed the bus driver as a hero while police investigate the incident, authorities said.

The child apparently was able to get onto an exterior air-conditioning unit because the window guards were too small for the opening, said New York City Housing Authority spokeswoman Sheila Stainback. There are now child-proof bars in place and the air conditioner unit has been removed from the window.

The girl's mother told CNN affiliate WCBS that she thought her daughter was asleep and blamed the incident on the air conditioner, which she said was installed just a few days ago and was defective.

Deborah Reed, a witness who alerted the girl's mother that her child was standing on the air conditioner, was emotional about the whole ordeal.

"I am just so thankful that everything turned out well -- I really am," she said.

But most grateful was the girl's mother, who hugged and thanked St. Bernard on Tuesday.

Still, the bus driver is brushing aside the "hero" label.

"If you have kids or you love people, like me, it's something you jump into action real quickly," he said.

[kuhio98]

CONCORD, NC (WBTV) - Barbee Farms in Concord only harvests about two-thirds of their crops. Farmers typically will only harvest what they can sell, leaving thousands of pounds of perfectly edible food out in the fields. That food might go to waste if it weren't for groups like The Society of Saint Andrew.

The group organizes volunteers to come and pick the second harvest or "glean" the fields. Last year they took more than 50,000 pounds of food and donated it to food banks and shelters.

"Usually food that's in the field in the morning is on somebody's plate by the night," said Jean Siers, the area coordinator for the agency.

Thursday morning, students from Charlotte's Freedom School were the volunteers picking and loading corn into bushel sacks. Despite the mud and wet conditions, the kids were able to pick more than 1,000 pounds of corn.

Siers says the food comes at no cost to them and is a great way to turn what would go to waste, into usable food for the hungry.

Farmers like Tommy Barbee say it's a win-win because they don't have to see food go un-used. "Nothing does me any more good than to see that crowd leave with food to be distributed among the community, said Barbee.

The Society of Saint Andrew is constantly looking for volunteers to glean area farms and transport the food to local agencies. For more information check out their website at http://www.endhunger.org/