The good guys thread

[kuhio98]

COURIER WILSON DAVIS, 27
Refusing to walk away

Walking along a side street near St. Nicholas Avenue in Harlem on March 30 to visit his mother, Wilson Davis saw the shadowy figure of a man towering over a little girl. Ignoring her screams, the man had pulled her pants down and was straddling her. Another passerby just kept on walking. Not Davis. "I couldn't just walk by," he says. "That girl could have been killed."

Containing his anger ("I really wanted to hit the guy"), the amateur heavyweight boxer pinned the man, then yelled to a woman looking down from an apartment, "Call the cops!" The relieved 12-year-old hugged Davis, repeating "Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!" Even the arresting officers embraced him.

A Virginia native whose family moved to The Bronx when he was 7, the imposing 6'4", 230-lb. courier spends most of his evenings at the gym, training for hours in hopes of winning a professional championship belt. As for his personal triumph last spring, Davis modestly shrugs and shakes his head. "I have a sister, I have a mom who lives in that area," he says. "It could have been one of them. Even so, I would have done it for anybody."

[Karen]

COURIER WILSON DAVIS, 27
Refusing to walk away

Walking along a side street near St. Nicholas Avenue in Harlem on March 30 to visit his mother, Wilson Davis saw the shadowy figure of a man towering over a little girl. Ignoring her screams, the man had pulled her pants down and was straddling her. Another passerby just kept on walking. Not Davis. "I couldn't just walk by," he says. "That girl could have been killed."

Containing his anger ("I really wanted to hit the guy"), the amateur heavyweight boxer pinned the man, then yelled to a woman looking down from an apartment, "Call the cops!" The relieved 12-year-old hugged Davis, repeating "Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!" Even the arresting officers embraced him.

A Virginia native whose family moved to The Bronx when he was 7, the imposing 6'4", 230-lb. courier spends most of his evenings at the gym, training for hours in hopes of winning a professional championship belt. As for his personal triumph last spring, Davis modestly shrugs and shakes his head. "I have a sister, I have a mom who lives in that area," he says. "It could have been one of them. Even so, I would have done it for anybody."

How anyone could just keep walking is beyond me! I would have tried to intervene, even though I am not as big as he is or as well-trained!

[kuhio98]

[kuhio98]

CABBIE WILLIAM SPIVEY, 50
Defending the road

Leaving Helen, Ga., on the night of Feb. 27, cabbie William "Bubba" Spivey drove over a hill and found himself face to face with an oncoming car on the wrong side of Interstate 20. Knowing a drunk driver had recently killed a father and his two children on that same stretch of road, Spivey decided on the spot to stop the oncoming car with his own. "If I stop dead still, I could block it," he said to himself, "and I believe I could survive the impact."

As others sped by, Spivey forced the other car off the road, then shouted to the driver, "Lady, you're on the wrong side of the interstate!" "No, I'm not," insisted Martha Bracken, 55, who tried to drive around him. But steering his car into hers, Spivey pushed her off the highway and jumped out to grab her keys.

Weeks later, Bracken pleaded guilty to driving under the influence and driving on the wrong side of the road. "I'm glad he stopped me," says the Crawfordville, Ga., resident. Spivey, a divorced father of two from Langley, S.C., felt he had no choice. "If I didn't try to stop her," he says, "and she killed somebody, I might as well have been driving that car."

[Karen]

Good gracious, what a risk he took! But being a cabbies, he was likely even more acquainted with the horrors on the road every day!

[kuhio98]

Police officer saves boy’s life 20 years ago, man is now an officer himself

MALDEN, MO (KFVS) - Jacob Redden doesn't remember the day he almost died, but Sergeant Scott Wilson said it's one day he will never forget.

"When I got there, there was this mother and father and they had a small child and he was real blue and wasn't breathing," Wilson said, "He didn't have a heartbeat."

Redden said he owes Wilson his life.

"Luckily Sergeant Wilson showed up and did CPR and saved my life," Redden said.

His parents had been taking him to the hospital after a seizure when little Jacob stopped breathing.

"You could tell that it wasn't going to be long and he wasn't going to recover from it," Wilson said.

However, when the two-year-old started crying, Wilson said the feeling of relief was indescribable. He said he didn't want Redden's parents to experience something he has dealt with himself…the loss of a child.

"Trying to hold back the tears. I had lost my own son a few years before that, 8 or 9 years before that. [He was] about the same age. And it was really scary," Wilson said.

Twenty years later, Redden said he's doing what he loves as an officer for the Campbell Police Department.

"After he saved my life I always figured if I can save another person's life then I've completed my goal," Redden said. "The only thing that pops in my mind when I think about that day is lucky that he was there, that he arrived so fast."

Wilson has watched Redden become a man and said he's proud of the career he's chosen. He made that clear when he spoke at Redden's graduation from the police academy.

"I actually told the story of Jacob and I then at the end I got to give him his diploma," Wilson said.

Redden and Wilson have kept in touch all these years and don't plan to stop any time soon.


"Luckily Sergeant Wilson showed up and did CPR and saved my life,” Redden said.

[cassiesmom]

(Reuters)
The Dallas Zoo will raise a pair of cheetah cubs with a Labrador retriever puppy, believing the dog will be a calming influence on the big cats as they grow to adulthood.

The 8-week-old male cheetahs Winspear and Kamau have arrived in Dallas, the zoo said, after a team of experts spent two weeks with them at their birthplace, the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute in Front Royal, Va.

They will be raised alongside an 8-week-old black Labrador retriever puppy named Amani, the zoo said in a statement on Thursday.

"Zoological experts have found that because dogs are naturally comfortable in public settings, Amani will provide a calming influence for the cubs, as well as another playmate as they grow to adulthood," the statement said.

Cheetahs are endangered with an estimated 10,000 in existence, the zoo said. In the wild, adult cheetahs are the world's fastest land animals reaching speeds of 60 miles per hour (97 kmph), according to National Geographic.

Now weighing about 8 and 6 pounds (3.6 kg and 2.7 kg), the cheetahs are expected to grow to about 3 feet (1 meter) tall at the shoulder and weigh up to 140 pounds (63 kg), the zoo said.