The good guys thread

[kuhio98]

Young girl raises money for K-9 bullet proof vest
Allison Henry donated her birthday money

HOLYOKE, Mass. (WWLP) - A member of the Holyoke Police Department is a lot safer Thursday night, thanks to a 10-year-old girl.

Allison Henry of Palmer was honored Thursday for raising enough money for the department to buy a bullet proof vest for one of their K-9 dogs.

Her mother found out about Ryker through a group called Vested Interest in K-9s.

Allison decided that instead of birthday presents this year, she would ask for donations instead to help get Ryker a vest.

"I just feel that a dog should be safe because I really like animals," Henry said.

Holyoke Police Chief James Neiswanger praised the young girl. "A young lady at 10 years of age, making an impact on the world, making a positive impact," he said.

Thursday night, the department also introduced their two newest K-9 members, June and Titan.

[kuhio98]

From People Magazine Heroes Among Us:

PARAMEDIC TERRY HOBEN, 37
In a hurricane's wake, he ferries neighbors to safety

After wrapping up a brutal 17-hour shift Sept. 17 at a hospital in Newark, N.J., paramedic Terry Hoben thought he'd take a look at what Hurricane Floyd had left behind before he headed home. Entering downtown Bound Brook, where he lives with his wife, Sally, 45, and their two children, Hoben found chaos. Floodwaters from the Raritan River had risen more than 10 feet on Main Street, inundating homes, shorting out power lines and setting off fires. "It was hysteria at that point," recalls Hoben. "There were fire trucks running all over the place, state police were arriving with boats, 10 to 12 feet of water." And the water was still rising.

Spotting a friend, police Lt. Steven Cozza, Hoben asked how he could help. Cozza urged him to get home as fast as he could, put his fishing boat into the water and start emptying houses. Soon after, in the 16-foot skiff he had left parked on a trailer in his driveway, Hoben teamed up with officer Diana Paczkowski and pushed off into the eerie landscape of half-submerged buildings in search of stranded residents. "You put 16 feet of water on an area you usually walk around, and you can't recognize a thing," says Hoben. "We were scared to death." Adds Paczkowski, 29: "I'm not an avid water lover, first of all."

Navigating fast-running murky waters where familiar streets once lay, the two were soon hard at work. Taking aboard babies and children first, they plucked whole families from upper floors, attics and even rooftops where they had sought safety. Hoben sometimes entered a house where residents had been reluctant to leave or were waiting for the waters to subside. But water wasn't the only worry. The floods had risen to the point that Hoben and his passengers had to duck beneath high-voltage power lines, some of them still surging with current. And in one area a gas main had broken. Hoben carefully eased his boat along, hoping nothing would set off the potentially lethal fumes. "A mistake could not just have cost my life or Diana's, but the 8 or 10 people in the boat," he explains.

He and Paczkowski made nearly 50 trips over 13 hours, taking people to safety. Mary Anne Baloy, 42, remembers him well. She, her husband, Roger, 39, and their three children thought they could wait out the flood. Then it rose to their first-floor ceiling and kept on climbing. In the distance, she says, "you heard people screaming." When Hoben and another team of rescuers arrived, he lifted Baloy's kids into his boat. "It was incredible what they did," she says. "I have no idea how to repay them." But Hoben says he was just one of many residents and police officers who helped that night. "My town was in trouble," he says. "And this disaster pulled this community together."

[kuhio98]

Sgt. Kevin Briggs Stops Suicides on San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge


More than twice a month, on average, those who've lost all hope come to San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge, climb over the railing and, tragically, plunge 220 feet into the Pacific Ocean to end their pain.

That number would be higher, if not for California Highway Patrol Sgt. Kevin Briggs, nicknamed the "Guardian of the Golden Gate." Since 1994, through sheer compassion and expert listening skills, Sgt. Briggs has helped convince more than 200 people on the precipice of death not to take their lives (so far, he's only lost one).

"People who come to jump don't necessarily want to die," explains Briggs, 50, who calmly introduces himself just a few feet away to the despondent person, often standing for hours in bone-chilling wind or heavy fog.

"I try to find out what brought them to this point," says Briggs, a cancer survivor and father of two boys. "If I can get them to break down, that's a good sign, it shows they're listening and thinking. If someone says they have no plan for tomorrow, I say, 'OK, let's make one.' "

"Sgt. Briggs not only saves lives, he inspires us all with his compassion and dedication," says Robert Gebbia, American Foundation for Suicide Prevention director. "He's a true American hero."

In March 2005, Kevin Berthia, then 22, a former postal worker who'd battled lifelong depression and was overwhelmed as a new father, was about to jump when Briggs, who happened to be passing by, spotted him.

"I know you must be in tremendous pain," Briggs told him. "If you want to talk, I'm here to listen."

It was a life-changing moment for Berthia.

"Sgt. Briggs got me to open up about stuff I'd never dealt with before, like not knowing my real parents," says Berthia, an adoptee, who now takes medication for depression. "He made me realize we're all here for a purpose, and life is about finding just what that purpose is. I owe every bit of my second chance to him."

[kuhio98]

FISHERMAN SHAUN CURNOW, 32
A helping hand for a deer in deep water

As he headed out at dawn last June off the coast of Cornwall, England, fisherman Shaun Curnow of the village of St. Keverne was hoping for a standard day's haul of 500 pounds of mackerel. Instead, as he scanned the sea a quarter-mile offshore, he spotted a disturbance in the water. "The gulls were really going in on something," says Curnow. "I could see this little brown blob. I thought it was a bit of driftwood at first."

But it wasn't. As Curnow pulled his 19-ft. fishing boat, the Bold Venture, toward the scene, he made out an object moving against the tide. "As soon as I saw the antlers, I knew what it was," he says. " 'That's a blinkin' deer!' " After several attempts to pull alongside the flailing animal, Curnow finally managed to grab hold of the exhausted creature and haul him over the side. "He was huffing and puffing and panting," says Curnow, who offered the deer a bit of a Kit Kat bar. "He kept looking at me, and he was a sad little thing." Onshore in 20 minutes, Curnow, who had radioed ahead, was met by local veterinarian David Cromey, who examined the winded but healthy 3-year-old male—which weighed in at 65 lbs.—and later released him into the nearby woods.

To date no one in St. Keverne, where few deer are ever seen, has been able to explain how the hapless animal wound up in the sea. But his rescue briefly made Curnow, a divorced father of two, a national celebrity. "They were all ready for big brown eyes and a story with a happy ending," says Cromey. "And that's what they got."

[Karen]

fter several attempts to pull alongside the flailing animal, Curnow finally managed to grab hold of the exhausted creature and haul him over the side. "He was huffing and puffing and panting," says Curnow, who offered the deer a bit of a Kit Kat bar. "He kept looking at me, and he was a sad little thing." Onshore in 20 minutes, Curnow, who had radioed ahead, was met by local veterinarian David Cromey, who examined the winded but healthy 3-year-old male—which weighed in at 65 lbs.—and later released him into the nearby woods.

Who knew a deer would eat a Kit Kat bar! That's an ad in the making! I bet that's one buck who will never go for an ocean swim again!

[kuhio98]

A Heavenly Hero in a Black Chariot

By Margaret David, Tujunga, California

I wasn’t as spry as I used to be, but I liked to walk, rather than drive, around my small town. Shopping, the doctor’s office, the bank were all nearby, clustered around a busy five-way intersection that connected to the thruway.

Seeing the traffic as I strolled back home, I was glad to be on foot.

Then I heard a growl. A dog—not looking quite right—stalked toward me. I backed up. Grrrrr! A snarl from behind. I nearly jumped out of my skin. At my heels was a second dog, as angry as the first. Oh, no, I’ve stepped in the middle of something....

We have strict leash laws in California, but no owner was in sight—no one except the people driving by. I knew I wouldn’t get far trying to run. “Nice doggie...” I whispered.

From the corner of my eye, I caught sight of a black car exiting the thruway. Shiny like it had just come from the dealer’s lot. It suddenly stopped on the opposite side of the street. A tall, slender man stepped out and calmly crossed the street toward me, dodging the slowing cars without a second glance.

“Go home!” he commanded the dogs. “Go home!”

The dogs turned tail and ran. The man headed back to his car.

I shouted after him, but he didn’t seem to hear over the traffic noise. He got in his car, started it and drove out of sight.

A black car? I wondered. Shouldn’t it have been angel white?

[kuhio98]

Barb Bratvold's First-Graders Send Get Well Cards to Thousands of Strangers

One week after Donna O'Malley's 23-year-old son died last February, the retired Montevideo, Minn., nursing-home worker found a large manila envelope stuffed inside her mailbox.

Inside were 15 handmade sympathy cards from a group of first-graders O'Malley had never met.

"We're so sorry about your loss," read one card in a crooked scrawl, covered with pink and purple hearts.

"We care about you," read another, embellished with rainbows and a smiling sun.

O'Malley wept as she sifted through the stack of cards, savoring each message.

"It touched my heart that these young kids took the time to think about me and my son," she says. "I still have the cards on display in my sun room. I'll treasure them forever."

O'Malley is among 50,000 people who have lost loved ones, are ill or just need to know someone cares who have received surprise packages from the Kindness Club at Evansville Elementary, a student charity started in 1995 by teacher Barb Bratvold.

Bratvold had assigned her students to make get-well cards for a guest speaker who became ill shortly after visiting their class.

The kids enjoyed the project so much, she says, that they asked if they could continue making cards for others in the community who needed cheering up.

Whenever anybody in Evansville, Minn., learns about a friend or relative going through a tough time, they know to tell the Kindness Club, says Hallie Richter, 6.

"I like to write 'I love you' on all of my cards and decorate them with lots of stickers," says the first-grader. "I hope they help people to get better faster."

Meeting twice a week, "the Kindness Club is a way to teach my kids that the world isn’t all about them, there are people out there who are hurting," adds Bratvold, 57.

"Even though they’re only in first grade, this is a way they can make a difference," she says.

She recalls the story of one boy who initially didn’t want to make cards for people he didn’t know until he came to school one day in tears.

His favorite babysitter had been killed in a car accident.

"He spent a lot of time making a beautiful sympathy card," recalls Bratvold, "then he delivered all of the students' cards to the family."

After he saw how much it meant to her family, he always wanted to participate.

"Those are the kind of lessons I hope stay with my students," she says.

"I always tell my kids, 'Once you're a member of the Kindness Club, you're a lifetime member,' " she says. "I'm hoping that they'll still be making cards when they’re 99."