The good guys thread

[kuhio98]

Anderson community effort keeps homeless man warm

ANDERSON, SC (FOX Carolina) - Morning and night hundreds drive down N. Main Street in Anderson and while doing so pass a elderly homeless man named Jessie on their way.

Jessie has been living near various businesses on the street on and off for years. According to several people who have stopped and talked to him, he is Vietnam War veteran who served the country for nine years.

Anderson resident Bud Hanley chose to stop and talk to Jessie this week, and discovered he has no place to go when the temperatures fall below freezing.

"He said sometimes I have a place to go. Sometimes I find a place out of the wind, and sleep a little bit," said Hanley.

Determined to do something to help Jessie, Hanley expressed his feelings on Facebook.

"Within just a few minutes tons of people started to respond with comments and messages, text messages in support of doing something for him," said Hanley.

Just 24 hours later, a huge community effort developed a fund for Jessie to stay at the Quality Inn on N. Main Street. At press time donations had come in to provide Jessie with more than 60 nights lodging.

"The outpour of support is amazing, we're using both phone lines," said Latasha Leonard, a front desk receptionist at the Quality Inn. "People calling in paying with their credit cards, paying for one night, two nights and even five nights."

The people involved in helping say they hope others are inspired to pay it forward, and do good deeds in their communities as well.

"It's just about following your heart," said Hanley. "If there's something on your heart to do, go ahead and do it. Put it out there, there's a lot of good people that will have your back."

Hanley is just one of the several people that helped get this effort up and running.

The community has also started a tab for Jessie at the Waffle House connected to the Quality Inn on N. Main Street. If you would like to help out, you can call the Quality Inn at 864-226-6051

[kuhio98]

Man Says Dog Saved His Life After Seizure

VENTURA (CBSLA.com) — A man is in a Ventura County hospital thankful to be alive.

And he’s grateful not only to his doctors – but to his dog.

KCAL9′s Jeff Nguyen reports 48-year-old Tim Mullen says his Golden Retriever, Garth, helped him to escape his latest brush with death Monday night when he was alone at a relative’s home.

“He’s an angel. He’s sent down from heaven,” the Arizona resident said, revealing,”When the first responders showed up I wasn’t breathing.”

That could’ve been fatal had it not been for Garth.

The three-year-old pooch is trained to hit a button on an electronic bracelet when Mullen suffers an epileptic seizure – a condition he’s battled since the age of 12.

Mullen’s fiancée, Shauna Meyers, says the pair went through a training process together in Arizona and bonded almost immediately.

“It’s usually six months they say approximately,” she said of the process. “Tim and Garth, I would say within a week-and-a-half, started bonding. Within three weeks the bond was complete.”

That bond paid off on Monday night for the first time.

Garth picks up on Mullen’s seizures because of the scents in his body.

Thanks to Garth, paramedics were alerted to Mullen’s seizure and were able to transport him to Los Robles Hospital in Thousand Oaks in time. He woke up with Garth by his side.

“I started crying,” Mullen said. “She told me, ‘Garth saved you.’ I know Garth saved me.”

The cost for a service dog like Garth is nearly $22,000, which isn’t covered by all insurance policies.

In Mullen’s case, Medicare doesn’t cover the cost. He’s thankful for the thousands of dollars of donations that came in after the company that trains dogs like Garth created a video about Mullen’s story that went viral.

“I’m scared of my seizures. I’ve been too close to death too many times this last year. And I think there’s other reasons for me to be here,” he said.

[kuhio98]

Canaan woman asks Dunkin Donuts to donate its leftovers

CANAAN, CT (WFSB) - A Connecticut woman has started a petition asking officials at Dunkin Donuts to donate the uneaten leftovers to those less fortunate.

After a visit to her local Dunkin Donuts in Canaan, Nancy Lewis noticed that "large amounts" of food was being thrown out.

"I couldn't believe it when I found out how wasteful my local Dunkin' Donuts is," Lewis in a statement Friday. "Every day when new donuts arrive, my local store gathers up their leftover donuts and muffins and throws them into the dumpster."

Lewis went on say that the store's employees were not allowed employees to take any of the food home with them.

What was worse, Lewis said there is a food bank located a block away.

"They won't donate these perfectly good leftovers to the needy," Lewis said.

According to Lewis, she contacted Dunkin Donuts headquarters, who told her that "there is no company-wide policy for dealing with leftover food."

So, Lewis started a petition to ask Dunkin Donuts to donate the leftovers to shelters and food banks in their areas. As of Friday, it had more than 1,400 signatures.

"Each Dunkin' Donuts store is allowed to dispose of leftovers however they wish, and since throwing out leftovers is the easiest thing to do, hundreds of Dunkin' Donuts around the world are wasting leftovers while people in their communities go hungry. I think it's wrong to deprive people in need of food that Dunkin' Donuts no longer wants to sell. Instead, Dunkin' Donuts should direct their branches to donate to local food banks and other outlets that help feed the hungry," Lewis wrote on her petition.

According to Lewis, she learned that at one time, the Dunkin Donuts in Canaan was donating its leftovers to pig farmer to be used as pig feed.

Lewis acknowledges that the food at Dunkin Donuts is not the healthiest, but she said "there is no reason for perfectly good food to be thrown out in such large quantities."

[kuhio98]

Deputy Mascitelli stopped for a soda at Sunoco and ended up saving a man's life

Brooksville, Florida -- A deputy stopped by a gas station to get a drink and ended up saving a man's life.

Around 3 a.m. on Friday morning Deputy Mascitelli and Deputy Locke stopped at the Sunoco gas station on South Broad Street to get a soda. As the deputies left the store they saw a woman waiving her hands and yelling for help near one of the gas pumps.

The woman was next to a man holding his throat and turning pale -- it was evident he was choking.

Deputy Mascitelli began to perform the Heimlich maneuver while Deputy Locke called fire rescue. Eventually the food that was obstructing the victim's airway became dislodged.

After the man was able to breath normally paramedics were called off. The man and his wife thanked the deputies for saving his life.

[kuhio98]

Alabama Surgeon Walks Six Miles Through Snowstorm to Operate on Dying Man

As winter weather shut down highways and crippled portions of the South, one Alabama neurosurgeon made a heroic decision Tuesday not to let Mother Nature get in the way of life-saving treatment.

Dr. Zenko Hrynkiw, a 62-year-old brain surgeon (who has had a liver transplant), was working in Birmingham's Brookwood Medical Center when he was contacted by another hospital. There, a patient was desperate for emergency surgery for a traumatic brain injury.

Hrynkiw set off across town to operate, but his vehicle could only go so far in traffic and snow-stalled roads. His cell phone service went in and out as he tried to communicate with nurses. So he made a brave decision to get out and walk – for more than six miles, in a massive snowstorm – a feat that has earned praise at Trinity Medical Center where he operated, as a hero, NBC reported.

"He had a 90 percent chance of death, and the nurses and the ER physicians called me when I was walking and told me he was deteriorated and went into unconsciousness," Hrynkiw told the Associated Press about the desperate patient. "He was dying. If he didn't have surgery, he would be dead. It's not going to happen on my watch."

The determined physician made it to the operating room and his patient, according to the hospital, is now doing well.

"It was not just a walk in the park," Keith Granger, CEO of Trinity, told Alabama news site AI.com. Given what the doctor was up against, "it's a remarkable physical feat and mental feat. And we have an individual alive today who wouldn't be here if not for his efforts."

[kuhio98]

Papa John's donates pizzas before the big freeze

Gulfport, Mississippi ~ The freezing rain wasn't enough to stop Papa John's from feeding those in need. The pizza restaurant delivered free pies to several organizations across the Coast as the temperatures fell.

Papa John's manager Josh Green said he knew people could be shut in for several days due to the freeze and didn't want them to go hungry.

"It's a service to the community. I mean, these people deserve to eat just like anybody else, and we're in a position to give that to them, and that's what we're trying to do," said Green.

Debra Fox, director of the shelter, said that she was grateful to Papa John's for the donation.

"He came by to bless the shelter with something to eat and we're so glad about it," said Fox.

Sister Strengthening Sister wasn't the only organization that received the pizza donations. Green made sure his company stayed open long enough to deliver pizzas to police and fire departments, the Salvation Army, several churches and other homeless shelters.

After that, the pizza place shut its doors due to the weather.

[kuhio98]

'He wouldn't give up': Hero boy follows hunch to save elderly woman

Ten-year-old Danny DiPietro was on his way home from lacrosse practice with his dad on Saturday night when he thought he spotted a dog lying in the open garage of a condo complex near his home in Howell, Mich.

“It was really cold out and something didn’t seem right,” Danny told TODAY.com.

DiPietro’s parents assured him that no one would leave their dog out on such a frigid evening, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong. After a bit of prodding, his mom, Dawn, agreed to investigate the garage for him.

“He wouldn’t give up,” Dawn, 44, told TODAY.com. “Thankfully, he was persistent.”

As Dawn walked up the driveway, she realized what Danny had seen was actually an elderly woman lying on the ground, waving her gloveless hands in the air for help.

The woman, 80-year-old Kathleen St. Onge, had been stuck in below-freezing temperatures for an hour and a half after slipping on a patch of ice in her garage. To make matters worse, she had lost her gloves and shoes in an attempt to scoot herself to the front of the garage, where she thought she would be spotted more easily. And a bitter wind was carrying snow inside.

“She said she had prayed to the Blessed Mother that someone would help her and find her,” St. Onge’s daughter Sandy St. Onge-Mitter told TODAY.com. “She knew she only had about an hour left. She thought she would be gone.”

Dawn immediately ran home and called 911. The DiPietros and a neighbor came back with blankets and chatted with St. Onge while she warmed up. When police arrived, she was rushed to a nearby hospital.

“I was amazed,” Danny said. “I just felt really good that she was okay.”

St. Onge was released on Wednesday afternoon after being treated for hypothermia and dehydration. Doctors told her family that she would not have survived an hour longer in the extreme cold.

“She’s grateful,” St. Onge-Mitter said. “She knows that if it wasn’t for Danny's persistency, she probably wouldn’t be here today. So he is a hero.”

St. Onge has yet to meet Danny in person, but her daughter says she “can’t wait.” The DiPietros had an opportunity to meet St. Onge-Mitter on Tuesday during an interview for local television.

“It was very emotional,” St. Onge-Mitter said. “Danny’s a remarkable boy, but his family should also be getting a lot of credit. They acted on his hunch. It was a family affair.”

The two families plan on staying in touch.

“We’ve made a life-long friend,” St. Onge-Mitter said.