Heroism Facts

Four Coast Guardsmen took a 36-foot lifeboat into a 70-knot snowstorm off Cape Cod, out to a tanker snapped in two. A wave knocked their compass loose. Then 32 sailors came down a rope ladder into a boat built for about half that many, and one small red buoy light guided them in. That boat still floats at Rock Harbor every summer, cared for by volunteers.

Five University of Georgia Kappa Alpha Theta sisters pulled over on a rural Georgia road on March 15, 2024, when they spotted Cori Craft's SUV sinking into Brier Creek - wading in, freeing her and both sons, then watching Clarke Jones drop to her knees and perform CPR on a four-year-old whose lips had turned blue. About a minute and a half later, he opened his mouth and started crying. The sheriff's office made all five honorary deputies.

A flock of Canada geese knocked out both engines of US Airways Flight 1549 roughly two minutes after takeoff. Captain Chesley Sullenberger had about three and a half minutes to save 155 lives. He landed on the Hudson River - and when NTSB later ran simulations with a realistic 35-second decision delay added, the return to LaGuardia crashed short of the runway. The river was the only choice. Every single person survived.

Officers Dennis Stachura and Marco Lomibao took a 1:35 AM call in Glendale Heights, Illinois. A car had sunk 12 feet into a frozen pond at 1 degree Fahrenheit. They arrived to find three people - hands visible above the ice. They jumped in, broke through with shovels and a sledgehammer, and held all three afloat until backup arrived. Everyone survived.

On April 18, 2024, a 71-year-old man's SUV slammed into a guardrail on Interstate 94 in St. Paul and burst into flames - he was unconscious and trapped inside. Seven strangers stopped, ran into the smoke, and pulled him out seconds before the car was fully engulfed. One of them, a UPS driver named Michael Coy, climbed inside the burning vehicle to unbuckle him.

In 2021, KPMG offered accountant Scott Ruskan a full-time job. He said no and joined the Coast Guard instead. On his very first mission as a rescue swimmer - the July 2025 Texas rising waters - he saved 165 people at a summer camp. He was the only rescuer on scene for four hours.

Scarlett was a stray cat living in an abandoned Brooklyn garage when it caught fire in March 1996. She ran into the flames five times to carry each of her five kittens to safety, one by one. Her eyes were blistered shut by the end. Unable to see, she touched each kitten with her nose to count them before she collapsed. She survived, was adopted, and the clinic received over 7,000 letters from people wanting to give her a home.

On December 26, 2004, 10-year-old Tilly Smith was on holiday at Mai Khao Beach, Phuket when the sea suddenly pulled back. She recognised the sign from a geography lesson two weeks earlier. She screamed at her parents. The hotel was cleared. About 100 people were evacuated in minutes. Mai Khao had no deaths that day.

Jhonatan Gonzalez was hiking the Narrows at Zion National Park with his family - kids as young as 1 - when the calm river suddenly turned waist-deep and raging, choked with logs and debris. He and his brothers planted themselves in the current and formed a human chain. Strangers on the bank grabbed on. Dozens of hikers, including toddlers, passed hand-to-hand to safety. Everyone made it out.

Allen Parton came home from the Gulf War in 1991 unable to walk, talk, or remember his wife and children. Doctors told Sandra to leave him. A Labrador named Endal - rejected from service training - learned 200 commands from Allen's gestures and rebuilt his capacity to feel. When a car knocked Allen out in 2001, Endal put him in the recovery position, retrieved his phone, and ran to a hotel for help. Endal was best man when they remarried.

Officer Mohammed Suleiman watched a car sink nose-first into a Virginia pond with a woman trapped inside. He smashed her window and cut her seatbelt while other officers and bystanders linked hands, wading into the water to form a human chain. Together, they pulled her to shore. She survived with only minor injuries.

Kate Shelley was a teenager when an 1881 storm collapsed a trestle near her Iowa home. A passenger train with 200 people aboard was still coming. She crawled across a flooded railroad bridge on her hands and knees, lantern blown out. She reached the depot in time to stop the train. Railroads gave her a lifetime pass and a Tiffany medal. Today, Union Pacific trains still cross the bridge that bears her name.

Lesly Mucutuy was 13 when her plane crashed deep in the Colombian Amazon. Her mother died four days later. Lesly kept her three younger siblings alive for 40 days - including an 11-month-old - feeding the baby formula from the wreck, then plain water. Soldiers found them 3 miles from the crash site.

In 1982, Air Florida Flight 90 crashed into the frozen Potomac River in Washington. A rescue helicopter lowered a lifeline to the survivors clinging to the wreck. Passenger Arland Williams caught it and handed it to the stranger beside him. He did it again and again, each time to someone else. When the helicopter came back for him, he had slipped beneath the water. The bridge the plane struck now bears his name.

A woman drove her SUV into the water behind a Virginia Beach seafood restaurant. The doors wouldn't open. Strangers smashed the windows as it sank. One of them was Jeremy Way - a 17-year Navy rescue swimmer who happened to be eating lunch nearby. He put her in a cross-chest carry and swam her to safety. The SUV vanished moments later.

Eight-year-old Olivia Heid and her 4-year-old brother RJ sled off a ridge and vanish into a frozen New Jersey pond. Kieran Foley, 14, loses a boot in the mud and keeps going barefoot. His four friends link arms behind him on the ice. One by one, he hands both kids down the chain to shore.

The greatest finswimmer alive watched a trolleybus carrying 92 passengers plunge into a reservoir in Yerevan. He dove in 20 times through shattered glass in near-zero visibility, pulling people from the wreck one by one. 20 survived. His lungs were permanently destroyed. He never competed again. The Soviet government suppressed the story for 6 years. He named his shoe company Second Breath.

An unarmed Syrian-born fruit seller crouched behind a parked car, sprinted out, and tackled an attacker threatening 1,000 Jewish revellers at a Hanukkah celebration on Bondi Beach - taking two hits in the process. The Jewish community launched a GoFundMe that raised A$2.64 million for him. He reportedly asked the organisers: "Do I deserve it?"