Dogs have definitely won the propaganda war when it comes to pet popularity. Dogs are man’s best friend while cats are those aloof animals who will only occasionally allow a human to touch them. For all their stand-offish behaviour humans still tolerate cats enough to let them poop in a tray in their homes. Yet sometimes a cat repay their owners and will show them that feline affection is a real thing. Sometimes their displays of love are downright heroic.

Here are ten cats that have saved lives.

Top 10 Job Titles Held By Cats

10 Warming a Baby

When a tiny baby, less than 12 weeks old, was abandoned by his parents in Russia the outlook for his survival was not good. The weather was brutally cold and it looked unlikely that the child would survive the night. The infant was saved however by a local cat named Masha.

Many people fear having a baby and a cat in the same house because of the risk of a cat deciding that the baby’s face is an ideal spot to sit. In the case of Masha it was by climbing on top of the baby that they saved the child. Perhaps because the baby was in a box it was doubly irresistible to the cat.

Masha’s warmth kept the child alive and by meowing loudly was able to draw the attention of a neighbour. The child was taken to hospital and cared for while a search was made for his parents. Masha was rewarded with large quantities of treats and petting by admiring residents of the nearby apartment block.^[1]

9 Cancer Finder

Dogs have long been trained to detect things no human could sense. They have even been put to work in medicine where a dog’s nose can pick up the chemical signatures of diseases as diverse as Parkinson’s, Malaria, and Cancer. Training a cat is slightly more tricky. Sometimes though a cat can spontaneously show this amazing ability.

Sue McKenzie had spent twenty years living with a cat called Tom who very rarely showed her any affection. One day however Tom began to repeatedly bat at the back of his owner’s neck and meow loudly. Worrying her elderly cat was showing signs of an illness she took him to the vet. When the vet found nothing wrong with Tom it was suggested that maybe Sue was the one who needed help.

A scan revealed a cancerous lump. The doctors successfully treated Sue but gave her a stern lecture on always listening to her cat. Sue could not have known Tom would save her life when she welcomed the young stray into her home.^[2]

8 Diabetes Detector

Rescuing an animal can be one of the best things a person can do. Not only do you give another living thing a home the animal repays you with companionship and can improve your mental and physical health. For Hazel Parkyn her rescue cat Walter has saved her life over 50 times.

Hazel suffers from diabetes and her blood sugar level sometimes drops dangerously in the night as she sleeps. When this happens Walter detects it, perhaps by smelling chemical changes, he smacks her in the face to wake her up. This allows her to treat the low blood sugar before it becomes dangerous.

Ironically Hazel had bought a dog in hopes of training it to warn her if she was in danger. The dog proved to be useless in this task while Walter sits by Hazel’s bed at night ready to pounce.^[3]

7 Seizure Sensor

Cats are not always the most gentle of doctors. If a patient is about to suffer a seizure it is not usual medical practice for a doctor to bite them. Biting, however, is exactly what Blake does to his owner.

Glen Schallman has a range of illnesses that can bring on dangerous seizures at any time. While he might be able to detect the signs of an oncoming episode during his sleep a seizure could prove fatal. When he adopted Blake however he found that the young cat was giving him advance warning of an attack – by biting his toes.

Glen is now the oldest person ever recorded with his combination of illnesses and this can in part be put down to the tender ministrations of his feline protector. Blake was not trained to act as a guardian over his sleeping owner but has proved to be a trustworthy nurse.^[4]

6 Dog Fighter

Despite their reputation as man’s best friend dog can, sometimes, turn against humans. A dog bite can be a serious thing and is particularly risky for a child. When Jeremy, a four year old boy with autism, was attacked by a dog he might have sustained serious injuries.

Jeremy was riding his bike outside his home when Scrappy, a neighbour’s dog, grabbed his leg and began to shake him violently. It was then that Jeremy’s family cat Tara literally leapt into action. She launched herself at the dog. The dog turned tail and ran back to his home. Jeremy was left needing seven stitches but his injuries could have been much worse.

Tara was a stray that had followed the family home from the park one day. In return for her bravery against the larger dog Tara has since gone on to fame and acclaim. As well as multiple awards she has ‘thrown’ out the opening pitch at a baseball game and June the 3rd was named as “Tara the Hero Cat Day.”

10 Outrageous Stories Of Cats’ Lives Saved In Strange Ways

5 Fire Alarm

When a fire broke out in the night at a family home it was not a fire alarm that woke the sleeping family member but their cat Bandit. Bandit ran to the bedroom of owner and scratched her face to wake her up. Most people would be upset by a cat scratch but Bandit’s owners had reason to be happy. Able to call a fire engine their house, and lives, were saved.

The family owned several animals but the other three dogs, four cats, four kittens, and their hamsters and gerbils proved less helpful in their rescue. All the animals and humans in the house were saved.

Had they not been woken by Bandit the billowing smoke in the house might have smothered everyone inside to death. The local fire brigade was quick to praise Bandit’s heroic efforts – but they also suggested that people should invest in fire alarms rather than relying on their pets.^[5]

4 911 Caller

Sometimes a cat can call for help in a literal way. When Gary Rosheisen fell from his wheelchair in his home there was no way for him to reach the telephone to call for help. Yet police turned up and were able to help him anyway. The puzzle was how the police had known to come out.

The police had received a 911 call but no one was one the other end. When they phoned the number back there was no answer so they decided to check the address of the phone call to make sure that everything was okay. It was then that they found Tommy the cat next to the phone.

His owner had once tried to teach Tommy to call 911 in an emergency but did not think it had stuck in the cat’s mind. Making matters easier for Tommy was the fact that 911 was on speed-dial given his owner’s ill-health. With one button Tommy saved the day.^[6]

3 A Good Heart

Claire Nelson took a chance when she adopted a cat called Rusty. Because the cat was quite old most people had passed it by in search of a cuter kitten. Rusty would pay back his new owner almost immediately however.

When she began feeling a little unwell Rusty started acting very strangely. Normally incredibly mellow, as most cats tend to be, Rusty became anxious and would not leave her side. When Nelson tried to lay down the cat jumped up on er chest and would not let her go to sleep. Unable to go to bed and still not feeling well Nelson finally decided to visit the doctor. While waiting for a bus she took a turn for the worse and called 911.

Doctors found that Nelson had suffered a heart attack and needed emergency surgery. Without Rusty causing a fuss she may have gone to bed and never woken up again.^[7]

2 Crimean Tom

The Crimean War of the 1850s saw Russia fighting an alliance of the British Empire, France, and the Ottomans. During the fighting the Russians holding the city of Sevastopol were put under siege for almost a year. When the allied troops finally captured the city they found hardly any supplies to support them left. That is when Tom, a stray cat, stepped in.

Lieutenant William Gair was given orders to find any food left in the city. He was leading searches of cellars when he spotted Tom. Tom looked unusually fat for a cat that had just survived a year-long siege. Gair reasoned that Tom must know where there were plenty of mice – and where there were mice there must be a supply of food. Tom led the British to plentiful stores several times and helped the troops avoid starvation.

For his role in saving the soldiers Gair brought Tom back to Britain with him. Unfortunately Tom did not survive long but Gair had him stuffed and preserved in honour of his bravery. Whether the cat now kept in the Imperial War Museum is really Crimean Tom is unknown, but his story lives on.^[8]

1 Saving a Baby

A cat named Gatubela would seem to be destined to prove heroic. Gatubela is a translation of Catwoman and when Gatubela saw a baby at risk she jumped in to save the day. When baby Samuel crawled towards a steep flight of stairs the cat pounced to try and force him away from the edge.

In a video of the rescue Gatubela can be seen rushing to Samuel and grabbing his back to try and pull him away. When that doesn’t work she jumps in front of him and uses her paws to push and startle him backwards. The baby sits down and Gatubela seems content that he is safe.

Of course cats are still cats. When Samuel is safe Gatubela proceeds to pounce on the baby and bat him around a little. That bit of the video was cut out of most versions found online – hitting a child after you save it is not really the done thing.^[9]

10 Cats With Amazing Careers

Alcohol often gets a bad rap. Check the number of accidents caused by drunk drivers or the people in prison for offenses they committed after they got too drunk.

However, alcohol also has its good qualities. By that, we mean that it has saved the lives of several people and animals. Most of the time, these people were administered some shots of vodka or whiskey or some cans of beer to cure their medical ailments. In one instance, some guys were saved by the cork of a vodka bottle.

10 Nguyen Van Nhat

In early 2019, doctors prescribed 15 cans of beer for Nguyen Van Nhat, a 48-year-old Vietnamese man. Curiously, the weird alcoholic prescription was used to cure alcohol poisoning.

Trouble started for Nhat after he consumed a drink containing methanol, a poisonous form of alcohol. The alcohols we often consume are made with ethanol. Nhat was admitted to intensive care where doctors passed 15 cans of beer into his body.

Doctors first administered three cans of beer to Nhat. Thereafter, they administered one can of beer every hour to rid his body of the poisonous methanol. This worked because the liver prioritizes the breakdown of ethanol over methanol. While the liver concentrated on the ethanol, doctors performed dialysis to rid Nhat’s body of the methanol.

Doctors would have used vodka in place of beer because vodka has a higher ethanol content. However, they used beer because no vodka was available. Nhat was discharged after the procedure.^[1]

9 Ronald Aldom

In 2012, 77-year-old Ronald Aldom was admitted to intensive care after suffering from ventricular tachycardia (VT). VT is caused by irregular heart rhythms and is often the result of an earlier heart attack.

Aldom had an implantable defibrillator connected to his heart after a previous heart attack. This device passed shocks to his heart whenever his heart rhythms became abnormal. Unfortunately, the implantable defibrillator malfunctioned and delivered excess shocks to Aldom’s body.^[2]

Doctors attempted regular treatment, but it did not work. As a last option, they used what they call “ethanol ablation.” This means that they passed alcohol into Aldom’s heart to cause a controlled heart attack.

Doctors inserted a catheter into Aldom’s groin and directed it to an artery in the affected part of his heart. Then they passed a small amount of alcohol through the catheter. The alcohol caused the muscles in that area of the heart to stop working, which resulted in the heart rate returning to normal.

8 Denis Duthie

In June 2012, 65-year-old Denis Duthie was saved by whiskey after he temporarily went blind. Trouble began for the diabetic man after he drank some vodka that interfered with his diabetes medication. It caused him to go blind as he walked into his bedroom.

Duthie did not quickly realize he had gone blind. He thought the lights just went off. He only realized what had happened when he couldn’t find the light switch. He went to bed, hoping his sight would be restored the next day. He was wrong.

Duthie was taken into surgery after he arrived at the hospital. Doctors suspected that he was suffering from formaldehyde poisoning, which could be caused by drinking methanol. Interestingly, this could be treated with ethanol, which is in whiskey.

The doctors did not have enough ethanol in the hospital, so somebody went to get a bottle of Johnnie Walker Black Label whiskey from a nearby store. Doctors poured the whiskey into a drip and passed it directly into Duthie’s stomach.^[3]

He remained in a coma for five days. Interestingly, he never got drunk because doctors passed the whiskey directly into his stomach. He would have become drunk if the alcohol had been administered through his mouth.

7 Charles Joughin

Charles Joughin was the head baker on the Titanic when it sank in the early morning of April 15, 1912. Joughin behaved eccentrically after the ship hit the iceberg and until it sank. He first had his staff deliver 50 loaves of bread to people boarding the lifeboats. Then he went into his room to have a drink.

Later, he left for the lifeboats—and actually got one—but abandoned his seat to allow more women and children aboard. He returned to his room to have another drink. The Titanic started to sink as he finished his drink.

Joughin threw chairs into the water so survivors could have something to hold onto. Then he went into the pantry to get more drinks. It was then that the Titanic broke into two. Joughin was right on the stern of the ship as it went underwater. He remained in the cold water for two and a half hours until he was rescued by a lifeboat.

Ultimately, Joughin merely suffered swollen feet, which is admirable considering that lots of people froze to death in the cold ocean. An inquiry determined that Joughin had survived the cold waters because he was drunk. He had so much alcohol in his system that he didn’t freeze.^[4]

Interestingly, a drunk person normally freezes to death faster than a sober person. However, Joughin was too drunk and the water was so cold that his blood vessels just tightened. He would have frozen to death if he had not been drunk enough.

6 Cloe The Dog

A few years ago, Stacy Zammit entered her Melbourne, Australia, home to find Cloe, her American Staffordshire Terrier, behaving abnormally. Cloe fell whenever she attempted to stand. By night, she had lost her appetite and started crying.

Zammit took Cloe to a veterinarian who determined that the puppy had ingested antifreeze. Zammit and the vet suspected that Cloe had licked the chemical from some parked cars. Antifreeze is dangerous to humans and animals because it contains ethylene glycol, a poisonous chemical compound that causes kidney failure and death.

The vet considered administering some alcohol to Cloe. Unfortunately, there was none in the clinic. Luckily for Cloe, he had a bottle of vodka that had been gifted to him by a member of his staff. The vet poured the vodka in a drip and administered it to Cloe.

Over one-third of the bottle was passed into Cloe’s body over the next two days. That amount is equivalent to a human drinking eight shots of vodka at four-hour intervals. Cloe made a full recovery.^[5]

5 Joseph Lehr

In May 2016, Joseph Lehr, Michael Clapman, and an unnamed friend were sailing 183 meters (600 ft) off the coast of Rockaway Beach in New York when their boat lost a drain plug. Water started entering the boat through the hole.

The trio unsuccessfully tried covering the holes with several items including metal and socks. About 1 meter (3 ft) of water had already entered the boat by the time they got close to shore. For a while, it seemed like they were going to sink.

A man having a party saved the day when he threw some corks at them. Lehr grabbed one, which was from an Absolut vodka bottle, and used it to cover the leak. Lehr and his friends were escorted to safety by the New York City Fire Department and the New York Police Department.^[6]

4 Two Elephants

In 2012, two circus elephants were saved from freezing to death after circus officials gave them some shots of vodka. The show was traveling through the cold Novosibirsk region of Siberia, Russia, when the trailer carrying the elephants caught on fire.

The elephants were released from the trailer into the cold where temperatures reached -40 degrees Celsius (-40 °F). Their ears soon got frostbitten, and it looked like they were going to die of hypothermia. Luckily, the staff saved their lives when they administered some shots of vodka.

The elephants loved the drink so much that they trumpeted in appreciation. (The sort of thing that drunk humans do.) Then the animals were led to a garage where they remained until another trailer arrived. Rostislav Shilo, the director of Novosibirsk Zoo, later clarified that the elephants never got drunk. Circus officials had diluted the vodka with water.^[7]

3 Unnamed Tourist

In 2007, doctors in Australia saved the life of a suicidal Italian tourist with some shots of vodka. The unnamed 24-year-old had drunk antifreeze in a failed suicide attempt. He was rushed to intensive care where staff administered a drip filled with medicinal alcohol to counter the effects of the deadly poison.

They later turned to regular alcohol after their supplies ran out. The alcohol of choice here was vodka. For three days, doctors filled the tourist’s drip with three shots of vodka every hour. Fortunately, they put him in a deliberate coma so he would not feel the effects of getting stoned. He survived and left the hospital 20 days later.^[8]

2 Charlie The Dog

Charlie was another dog that almost died of kidney failure after licking ethylene glycol. The Maltese terrier licked the chemical compound on the floor of the garage in the home of its owner in Melbourne, Australia.

Charlie was transported to Melbourne Animal Accident and Emergency hospital where vets passed a drip of vodka into his stomach through his nose.

The vodka worked because the enzymes that convert ethylene glycol into the deadly glycolic and oxalic acids prefer attaching to alcohol rather than ethylene glycol. Vodka is often the drink of choice because it is almost pure alcohol.

Over the next two days, veterinarians gave the vodka to Charlie while they extracted the ethylene glycol. Charlie made a full recovery, although he was still experiencing a hangover at the time he was discharged.^[9]

1 Tipsy The Cat

The cat was named Tipsy after some shots of alcohol saved his life. The dying cat was found outside a shop in Lowood, Queensland, Australia. He was taken to a Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals hospital where he was discovered to have ingested antifreeze.

Tipsy was almost dead when he arrived at the hospital. He was weak, and his kidneys were almost failing. The vets feared that he would not survive for another hour. They wanted to administer alcohol, but there was none in the hospital.^[10]

Luckily, one of the nurses had an unopened bottle of vodka that someone had given her as a Christmas gift. Doctors diluted the vodka and administered it to the cat through a drip. The cat remained on the drip for 10 hours. Tipsy went on to make a full recovery, although he did have a hangover.

Toys come in all shapes, sizes and colors. They roll, squish, inflate, talk, buzz and a whole lot more. Pretty much everyone, at one point or another, has played with a toy. And, toys are huge business—in 2018, world toy sales hit 90.4 billion.

Toys are designed to be used for fun. But, as the list below shows, these supposedly silly little objects of diversion can also play the difference between life and death.

SEE ALSO: 10 Terrifying Toys From The Past

10 Remote Controlled Toy Truck Saves Soldiers

Ernie Fessenden had a brother serving in Afghanistan and wanted to make sure he came home safe. So, he hooked up with hobby shop owner, Kevin Guy, and, together, they added a wireless camera and infrared lighting to a remote control toy truck and shipped it off to Afghanistan.

One day, Ernie’s brother, Chris, lent the toy truck to a group of soldiers about to head off for patrol. Out in their Humvee, the soldiers sent the remote control toy truck racing ahead looking for danger. It found it. The toy truck got caught up in some wires and -BOOM!—500 pounds of explosives detonated. The soldiers were not hurt.

When Ernie heard about the incident, he was amazed, “At first I was just absolutely shocked…It could have been [Chris] out there…Then after that it was, ‘Do you need another truck?’”

Guy was elated, “It’s like we went over to the bad guys and stuck a stick in their eye with a toy…”

Without the souped-up remote controlled toy truck, the soldiers would have either had to walk or drive—possibly triggering an explosion that could have ended one or more of their lives.^[1]

9 Inflatable Toy Turtle Saves 13 Lives

In July of 2017, heavy rains battered the Chinese city of Liuyang—located in Hunan province. At one point, in one part of the city, 13 people were trapped in their homes with water rising quickly around them.

With no boats nearby and knowing that time was a factor, some quick thinking policemen ran to a nearby toy store. There they found their solution— a bright green inflatable toy turtle.

Returning to the scene, the police quickly put the inflatable to use and rescued those 13 people in just under 2 hours. Though heroic, the officers were a bit embarrassed by the inflatable frog, “Sorry for our vessel being… too cute…But, most importantly, the people are all safe.”

A goofy toy usually associated with small children and swimming pools became something much grander for those 13 people on that fateful day.^[2]

8 Man Uses Toy Lightsaber To Fend Off Knife Attack

Attention “Star Wars” fans, apparently, Luke Skywalker is alive and living in Rock Hill, South Carolina.

According to witnesses, on the night of Thursday, March 17th, 2017, a stepdaughter and her stepfather got into a nasty scrap. The 17 year-old young woman’s weapons of choice were two kitchen knives. Ah, but her stepfather had the upper hand—he had lightsaber.

Though only a toy lightsaber—it did the job. Witnesses said that he hit his stepdaughter several times to fend off her attack.^[3]

7 Stuffed Animal Saves Girl

For those unaware, Minions are little yellow animated characters that began their movie life in the 2010 hit, “Despicable Me.” Since then, they have starred in their own movie, which grossed $1.159 billion worldwide back in 2015. Off screen, they are doing much more amazing things.

On the night of July 16th, 2015, in Colorado Springs, Colorado, a 5 year-old girl was playing at home in her family’s third floor apartment. Somehow, she fell backwards out of her bedroom window. At the time, she was playing with a stuffed Minion teddy bear. Miraculously, it cushioned her fall and saved her life. She escaped her brush with death with just a broken arm.

In the movies, Minions may work for supervillains, but, in real life, at least in the eyes of one lucky little girl, they are superheroes.^[4]

6 A Doll Saves A Girl During WW2 Bombing

The Germans bombed the hell out of the UK in WW2. Though it suffered far less sustained attack than London, Wales lost 984 of its’ people—another 1,221 were seriously injured.

In September of 1940, in the Welsh town of Haverfordwest, a German bomb was dropped near a house where 2 year-old Dorothy Owen lived.

When it hit, her mother ran upstairs to find that the ceiling of her young daughter’s bedroom had fallen in. Frantically clearing debris, she found, miraculously, that her daughter was still alive. The solid head of a doll she was clutching when the ceiling came down shielded her own head from being hit.

Escaping with just a cut on her cheek and neck, Dorothy went on to live a long life and, not surprisingly, she still has the doll that made it all possible.^[5]

5 Toy Clicker Saved Allied Troops On D-Day

On D-Day, June 6, 1944, allied forces stormed the beaches of Normandy, France. 135,000 men took part in what proved to be a decisive turning point in the war against the Nazis. Of those men, 4,400 were killed and many more thousands were injured or missing.

Along with the standard equipment carried by American paratroopers that day was a tiny item that was mostly known as a toy that kids found at the bottom of a Cracker Jack box. It was known as a “cricket” because of the clicking noise it made when you pressed down on it with your thumb.

For Capt. Sam Gibbons, of the 101st Airborne, this tiny kid’s toy was a lifesaver. Parachuting into Normandy in the dark, Gibbons landed in a pasture surrounded by German troops. Half an hour of crawling later, he made his way onto a road. There, he came into contact with another soldier. Unsure if he was an American or German soldier, Gibbons clicked his cricket, “I gave him a click and he responded with two clicks. Boy, was I glad to see him.”

For the next few hours, Gibbons clicked away and managed to assemble a small combat patrol to fight the Germans while fellow allied soldiers stormed the beach.

The “cricket”—a brass and steel version of the tin prize—was added to each paratrooper’s pack at the last minute. Along with the guns and grenades they carried, this simple child’s toy kept death at bay on that famed northern coast of France all those years ago.^[6]

4 Kids Use Squirt Guns To Put Out Fire

There are few ways for a kid to cool off on a hot summer day that are more fun than a squirt gun fight. Carrying today’s giant super soakers, kids giggle their way into hysterics engaging in soaked shootouts with their friends while any parents caught in the crossfire yell for mercy.

On May 31, 2016, those parental yells must have turned into whoops of congratulation for five kids from West Fargo, North Dakota. In the midst of an all out water war, taking place on the grounds just outside their apartment complex, the boys and girls smelled smoke.

The smell of smoke lead them to the deck outside of a man’s apartment. It was on fire and the flames were spreading fast. Worse yet, the man was housebound, on oxygen and couldn’t leave his unit. The kids snapped into action as they turned from soaking each other to soaking the flames of the growing fire.

By the time the Fire Department arrived on the scene, the fire was smouldering and pretty much put out.^[7]

3 Stuffed Toys Save Adults Too

British politician, Geoffrey Clifton-Brown thought of throwing away the bag full of stuffed foxes he was given by a Chinese Internet firm. Then he thought of his family and decided to keep them. Good thing he did.

While walking outside a hotel in Beijing, Clifton-Brown fell down a concrete shaft. “Finally the crunch came 20 feet down this sheer concrete shaft with a concrete floor,” the shaken MP said.

Those stuffed toys he thought of trashing ended up cushioning his fall, “I took this huge bag of stuffed foxes and by pure luck it literally saved my life.”^[8]

2 Video Game Driving Skills Save The Day

These days, it seems like you can’t surf the net or flip channels without running into talk of whether or not video games kill. To some, that question remains an open one, while the answer to whether or not video games save lives has been answered in the affirmative by a 10 year-old boy from Golden, Colorado.

One day, Gryffin Sanders and his 4 year-old brother were passengers in a vehicle being driven by their grandmother. Suddenly, mid-sentence, she passed out. After failing to wake her up and with the car veering into oncoming traffic, Gryffin jumped into action. With the vehicle traveling at a high speed, he carefully steered off to the side of the road and into a muddy ditch. They slowed to a stop and everyone was alright.

His grandmother was eventually airlifted to a hospital where she recovered.

Interviewed afterwards, Gryffin credited the driving experience he gained by playing Mario Kart for helping him stay cool and steer to safety.^[9]

1 Little Red Wagon Saves Childrens’ Lives

A dad was out one day pulling his 15 month old son and his 2 year-old daughter on a red plastic toy wagon. All was well until a woman driving towards them momentarily took her eyes off the road and ploughed into the wagon—sending the two children under her car.

Miraculously, the siblings survived and it is all because of that little red wagon they were riding in. Amazingly, even though it was sucked under the woman’s car and dragged for 50ft, the wagon stayed solid and protected the two young children from otherwise certain death.^[10]

About The Author: Lifelong writer of scripts, songs, short stories and lists. Loves movies, music, politics and hockey. Founder and Writer of the film blog, “So Many Films, So Little Time”

Florida gets a bad wrap, and no more so than the Florida man, known on an international level as an entertaining party game. You type “Florida Man” and your birth date, and voila! You laugh at the idiot in the article who attacked his daughter with pizza, the man who mistook the bank for a Taco Bell drive-thru, or even the guy who drove a Ferrari into a lake after Jesus told him to.

Like most places, Florida is not all bad, and the majority of its inhabitants are not idiots. So to counter the negativity, here are examples of ten “Florida Men” breaking through the stereotype and being the good guys for a change.

Related: 10 Most Thrilling Adventures Of Florida Man

10 Florida Man Mowed for Charity

Cutting the lawn on a Saturday morning is quite a tedious affair—the back and forth, the exertion, the time wasted—simply to be repeated week after week. The average American can spend anywhere from seven to forty-seven days of their life mowing their lawn. Imagine spending more than a quarter of that time in one spine-breaking sitting.

But that is what one Florida Man did. Chip Hawthorne drove his lawnmower from Titusville to Spring Hill, a trip of 130 Miles, clocking an estimated 15 hours on his garden automobile, all in the name of charity. The idea behind this “Mowathon” was to raise half a million dollars to support the West Orange Habitat for Humanity. Although he fell short of his financial mark, he definitely made a dent in the Florida Man landscape.^[1]

9 Florida Man Saves Bear

Does a bear crap in the woods? Sometimes. Other times, it meanders into a neighborhood where it’s either shot by one of the locals or takes the head off an old lady heading to Walmart. Either way, the result isn’t ideal. When a adult male black bear entered a residential area called Alligator Point, the local animal control was called out. They responded by darting the animal with a sleep-inducing concoction.

In a panic, the bear dove headfirst into the Gulf of Mexico and started swimming. Adam Warwick, a wildlife conservationist, did what any God-fearing Florida Man would have done. He dove after it, risking his own neck by intercepting its path and trying to turn him around toward land, thereby preventing it from drowning once the good stuff kicked in. He eventually had to help the bear keep its head above water and helped to float the bear back to the shore. A national treasure.^[2]

8 Florida Man Gives Up Riches

Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons

I’m sure you’d all agree—$20,000 dollars is a lot of money. Whether you are living under a bridge or managing a carwash and waxing business, making your way through life and saving for retirement, $20,000 can go far. James Stratford, who manages just such an enterprise, saved a local businessman a ton in damages and possibly his business.

Russell Mir arrived at the carwash to have his truck cleaned. Unfortunately, he had forgotten to deposit three bags of money in the bank and had further instructed the employees at the carwash that everything in the truck was to be discarded. After realizing his mistake, Mir notified Stratford and returned to the scene of the mistake. After an initial search with Stratford, a father of five, they found only one bag of cash in a dumpster. Stratford continued the search, managing to find the other two bags. For his efforts, he was awarded unlimited Slurpees for a year or anything else he desired at Mir’s service stations. He should have kept the dosh.^[3]

7 Florida Man Saves Manatee

When the attention of Florida Man Don Swartz was drawn by something floating on the surface of the water that resembled the last person left standing after a big night at the bar, he immediately sprang into action. The manatee, which was suspected of being poisoned by the red tide, was followed around the harbor until it flipped onto its back.

Knowing well that the turn meant likely drowning, Don jumped into the water and held the animal up, keeping its nostrils out of the water like an alligator in waiting. Now that is a man-to-a-tee. For forty minutes, Don held the distressed creature until the professionals took over. Apparently, the large aquatic bovine got into a generous helping of toxic red tide seagrass. Ha, is that what they are calling it these days?^[4]

6 Florida Man Saves Kids from Fire

If you have ever seen Zoolander, you know two things: (1) you can cheer someone up with Orange Mocha Frappucinos and (2) the devastating aftermath of a fire at a gas station. Tragedy struck when a fire erupted at the service station in Palm Harbor, leaving a woman in mortal danger and her two children to witness the tragedy.

Without a second thought and with nothing to gain, Jared Pierson, a local homeless Florida Man, dashed into the smoke and flames and pulled the two children to safety, risking his own life in the process. He later mentioned that had he known their mother was in danger, he would have likely done even more.^[5]

5 Florida Man Helps the Turtle Cross the Road

We all know the story of the rabbit and tortoise. The rabbit got cocky and took a nap while the slow and steady tortoise went home with the spoils. In the city of Naples, the scaly little guy was still running at full tilt. The problem was that he had a busy road to cross and no speedy legs to carry him across.

An anonymous Florida Man had other plans, hopping out of his truck and carrying Leonardo to safety on the other side of the road. Real heroes don’t have names. They simply live in the imagination and minds of others. This man will live on in the memories of all who witnessed him stop traffic simply to preserve nature. Send our regards to Master Splinter.^[6]

4 Florida Man Saves Person Having Seizure

Heroes don’t always have broad chests and legendary attire. They come in all shapes and sizes, and when the stars align, they wear steel-toed boots for protection from their day jobs. While mowing his lawn one morning, Tony Neil noticed a neighbor having a seizure while in his car.

With the car still in motion, Tony sprung to action as if taken straight from the pages of a comic book and attempted to stop the car, the vehicle almost crushing his foot if not for the steel boots of glory. Eventually, the car came to a halt against a tree, and with no way to get inside, Tony had someone call 911, who arrived and pulled the man to safety. The victim survived the ordeal and thanked Tony for saving his life. I imagine them sitting in the back of an ambulance, tying all loose ends before the credits start rolling. ^[7]

3 Florida Man Saves Drowning Child

Delray Beach, FL. Mother’s day almost turned into a nightmare for a mother of twins as one of her daughters was swept out to sea in a rip current. Working at a local resort, Logan Gaynor heard the screaming and went to see what was happening. Without hesitation, he broke into some Logan’s Run-style action and dashed right into the water to provide help.

Logan was able to pull the girl to safety without anybody getting hurt and was later commended by the local fire department with a lifesaving award, leaving the family with nothing but “what-ifs.” What if Logan wasn’t there? What if he also got caught in the rip current and was dragged out to see? What if they never ever enter the ocean again for any reason for the rest of their lives?^[8]

2 Florida Man Rescues People from Afghanistan

The U.S. Armed Forces have been fighting and working to maintain peace in the Middle East for as long as we can remember. A recent controversial exit from the country had left many Americans stranded in the process. In August of 2021, before the U.S. officially ended its campaign and the Taliban took back power, the U.S. began a mass evacuation of personnel and people on the ground.

A total of 120,000 people were evacuated from the country, with many being aided by private organizations. In their efforts, the U.S. government found one sure way to do it: enter Florida Man. Zach Van Meter, a private equity investor from Naples, was roped in to assist after Uncle Sam—well, okay, it was a former U.S. commando—came knocking. His group, known as the Commercial Task Force, was directly responsible for evacuating at least 15,000 people. Talk about making a difference from afar.^[9

1 Florida Man Saves Puppy

If film and documentaries have taught us anything, it’s that the number one unforgivable sin is to let the dog (or cat) die—the biggest no-no in the civilized world. The mom can fall from a cliff, the dad shot, but if Rufus dies, then that’s that. One Florida Man lives and dies by that mantra.

Richard Willbanks, a Florida retiree, was walking his doggo, Gunner, when a gator attacked, dragging the little guy to the water. Alligators are well known for drowning their prey, and Gunner was no exception. Richard flew after the hungry gator and went looking for it underwater before lifting the reptile with the dog still in its jaws out of the lake. Eventually, Willbanks managed to wrestle the dog free only with minor scratches. And get this—he didn’t drop his cigar. All the commotion, the struggle for life and death, and his cigar remained in his mouth throughout the entire ordeal. We all hope that Richard lives forever. A true Florida Man.^[10]

You don’t have to be bitten by a radioactive spider, have super speed or strength, or have the ability to fly in order to be a hero. Being a hero simply means putting the needs of others before your own and relying on your own inner strength and courage, even in the face of danger or uncertainty.

Being a “hero” can span a variety of situations from paying for a person’s groceries when they come up short at the register, helping a new mother who’s struggling, granting a last wish to someone with a terminal illness, or just leaving a larger-than-usual tip for an employee in the service industry.

The ten pizza delivery drivers on this list had no idea the circumstances they were about to encounter as they made seemingly normal deliveries. However, rather than ignoring the situation or assuming they could not help, they heard the calls of those in need and chose to answer, ultimately saving the day and in some cases, the lives of their customers.

Related: 10 Times A Homeless Person Was A Hero (For Real)

10 Anson Lemmer

Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons

Nineteen-year-old Anson Lemmer, a pizza delivery driver for Uncle Pizza in Denver, Colorado, headed out for his last delivery on June 15, 2015. However, when a standard pizza delivery quickly became a medical emergency, Lemmer sprang into action.

When Lemmer arrived at his destination, he saw a man on the ground turning blue and in need of help. While there were other bystanders at the residence, they did not know CPR. However, Lemmer had received CPR training as a pre-teen and put that training to good use until first responders could arrive. By that time, the unnamed man was in stable condition and transported to the hospital, where he was later released. While Lemmer doesn’t consider himself a “hero,” he was honored by The American Red Cross on July 17, 2015, and presented with the Lifesaver Award.^[1]

9 Sofia Furtado

Caryn Sullivan of West Island Fairhaven, Massachusetts, placed a pizza order on February 11, 2022, but because her husband was asleep, she decided to wait outside her home for the delivery. Unfortunately, while waiting, Sullivan’s knee gave out, causing her to fall down a set of stairs and injure her head on the way down.

When Sophia Furtdao, the DoorDash delivery driver, arrived and saw Sullivan bleeding and unresponsive, she immediately went inside to notify Sullivan’s husband and call 911. Thankfully, Furtado also had previous EMT training, so she wasn’t afraid to assist and could follow the dispatcher’s instructions until medics arrived at the home.

While Sullivan underwent emergency surgery and months of recovery, doctors stated that had it not been for Furtado arriving when she did and assisting dispatchers, Sullivan would not have made it. The Fairhaven Police Department honored Furtado with a lifesaving award, and DoorDash also granted her a $1,000 educational grant to help her pursue her dreams of becoming an EMT.^[2]

8 Alou Bathily

In March 2019, twenty-one-year-old Alou Bathily, a native of West Africa, had only been a resident of the United States for two months. However, on the evening of March 29, not only was Bathily on a mission to serve pizza to a New York customer, but he also served up some much-needed justice.

While en route to a delivery, Bathily witnessed a police chase. Manhattan police were in pursuit of a suspect who previously had been harassing a woman and stole her headphones. When the suspect, 17-year-old Lovell Ambrister, took off on foot, Bathily refused to let him get away and chased after the young man on his bicycle. Bathily was able to tackle him to the ground and then stated he “sat on him for good measure” until the police arrived.

On April 23, 2019, the New York Police Department presented Bathily with an award for being a “local neighborhood superhero.” Not only was Bathily able to assist police in apprehending the suspect and saving the day, but he was also able to deliver the customer’s pizza in well under 30 minutes.^[3]

7 Nicholas Bostic

When 25-year-old pizza delivery driver Nicholas Bostic of Lafayette, Indiana, noticed a house engulfed in flames on the evening of July 11, 2022, he jumped into action without any second thoughts or hesitation. Thankfully, Bostic was able to enter the residence through an unlocked back door, where he began calling out to anyone who might have been inside.

Bostic found four children upstairs; however, once he had gotten them to safety, he was told a six-year-old girl was still inside the home. He ran back into the flames and was able to locate the child. Unfortunately, due to the intense amount of smoke, Bostic couldn’t find his way back out, so he took the little girl and jumped out of the second-story window, landing on his side to ensure she wasn’t injured during the escape.

Four of the children Bostic rescued lived in the home; one was a friend staying the night. The parents of the four children, David and Tiera Barrett, had gone out for a date night, and the fire later was deemed to have started due to a bucket of ashes on the porch that had not been fully extinguished.

Bostic suffered from severe smoke inhalation, deep cuts on his arms, and blisters on his hands but was released from the hospital a few days later. He was simply happy to know all of the children were okay. Needless to say, the Barretts are incredibly grateful for Bostic’s quick thinking and heroic actions, and they now consider him family.^[4]

6 Gilad Zargari

Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons

Seventeen-year-old Gilad Zargari is a pizza delivery driver in Be’er Sheeva, Israel. However, when he arrived to make a delivery on February 5, 2022, he was met by a young father in desperate need of help.

The father, Ran, told Zargari that his daughter was suffering from a febrile convulsion, a seizure that is brought on when a child’s temperature gets too high. The family was waiting for an ambulance to arrive. Thankfully, aside from delivering pizzas, Zargari was also a Magen David Adom (MDA) volunteer, which provides training in first-aid and emergency care.

Zargari immediately began doing what he had been trained to do. He called for a MICU, a mobile intensive care unit ambulance specifically equipped to care for those requiring immediate, high-level treatment, and wrapped the baby in a damp towel to bring her temperature down. Thanks to Zargari’s actions, the little girl had been stabilized by the time medics arrived. The little girl’s parents were extremely grateful that Zargari was the one who arrived on the scene and when he did, saying, “We received a pizza with a life-saving side order.”^[5]

5 Oregon Domino’s

Forty-eight-year-old Kirk Alexander of Salem, Oregon, had been a loyal Domino’s customer for over 10 years, ordering almost every single day. However, never could he have imagined that his love for pizza would ultimately save his life.

When 11 days had passed without a single incoming order from Alexander, general manager Sarah Fuller knew something had to be wrong and sent driver Tracey Hamblen to Alexander’s home to check on him. Hamblen had become well acquainted with Alexander and knew of his medical conditions. However, when Hamblen arrived, the lights and TV were on, but he was unable to get Alexander to answer the door or his phone.

Hamblen returned to the Domino’s store, where he and Fuller then called 911. First responders arrived and were able to rescue Alexander, who was believed to have had a stroke, although no specific details were released regarding his medical condition. However, the care of the Domino’s staff didn’t end after Alexander was transported to the hospital. They continued to make visits to check on him during his recovery.^[6]

4 Brad Lane

Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons

When pizza delivery driver Brad Lane received a phone call at Toppers Pizza in Clifton, Ohio, at 3:00 am on March 28, 2011, for a large order, something didn’t quite seem right. So rather than simply hanging up after the customer had finished his order, Lane continued to quietly listen to the man on the other end of the line. That’s when he overheard the plan to rob him during the delivery.

Lane and his manager then called 911. Between the efforts of 911 dispatchers and local police, they were able to set up a sting operation. They sent an undercover officer dressed as a pizza delivery man in Lane’s place. The criminals went through with their plan and attempted to grab the pizzas and flee, but the police already had the area surrounded and were waiting for them. Police arrested 19-year-old Kevon Whitfield and another 14-year-old who had also tried to rob a Pizza Hut the previous evening.^[7]

3 Karen Vogt

Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons

Karen Vogt was a pizza delivery driver for Mezzaluna Pizzeria in Ormond Beach, Florida, and also a favorite among its customers. However, on August 4, 2016, when Vogt attempted to deliver an order to an elderly customer who frequently ordered, and there was no answer at the door or by phone, she knew something was amiss.

After Vogt heard what she believed was a crash, she was determined to check on the customer and found a way to access the home through a door next to the garage. That’s when she saw that the customer had fallen trying to answer the door and was unable to get up. Vogt then alerted the pizzeria, who called for an ambulance while she waited with the elderly woman.

While the customer was able to come back home the next day, Vogt still felt bad that she never got to enjoy her pizza, so she paid for another one and delivered it to the woman personally.^[8]

2 Kaylene White

Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons

When a pizza order was made incorrectly on the evening of August 31, 2016, Domino’s driver Kaylene White was sent to deliver the corrected order to the Northside Senior Apartments in Angleton, Texas. However, little did she know that she was meant to be the one making the delivery that night.

Martha Norman, a resident at the complex, has a skin condition that often caused her to scratch herself, sometimes leading to bleeding. So when she called her daughter, Cheryl Stahl, saying she was bleeding, Stahl came to the complex to assess the situation. However, when she arrived, she saw her mother as well as the apartment covered in blood. After Norman was unable to explain what happened, Stahl panicked and was so hysterical she could not unlock her phone to call for assistance. That’s when she began screaming for help, and thankfully, White came running.

White had previous experience working in the medical field and immediately took charge of the situation by grabbing towels to form a tourniquet around Norman’s legs to stop the bleeding. When paramedics arrived on the scene, they confirmed that had it not been for White’s actions, Norman may have had a much different outcome.

Additionally, given her heroic efforts, one of the paramedics on call, Jason Albert, later went into the Domino’s store to inform White’s manager what had happened to ensure she did not face any consequences for returning late from the delivery. While White doesn’t consider herself a hero, both Norman and Stahl say that they will never forget her, and they consider her a “lifelong friend.”^[9]

1 Joey Grundl

Dean Hoffman forced his way into his ex-girlfriend’s home on the afternoon of September 27, 2018, where he proceeded to physically assault and hogtie her, holding her against her will. The woman naturally assumed she was going to die by Hoffman’s hand. However, Hoffman’s sinister plans were foiled when he made the mistake of ordering a pizza, which would be delivered by a very observant driver.

When Domino’s driver Joey Grundl arrived with the delivery order, the woman alerted Grundl to her black eye and mouthed the words “help me” and “call police.” Grundl kept his composure to not alert Hoffman that he knew something was wrong, and once he was back in his car, he called 911. Hoffman was arrested and charged with suspicion of kidnapping, false imprisonment, strangulation and suffocation, felony intimidation of a victim, and burglary.

Grundl was honored by Domino’s CEO and presented with the “Above and Beyond the Call of Duty” award. Additionally, when Grundl was spotted wearing a Taylor Swift sweatshirt during an interview, word spread to the pop star, and Swift invited him to meet her backstage after her concert in Arlington, Texas.^[10]

The creator of the Incredible Hulk, Jack Kirby, claims that the character was inspired by a mother lifting up a car in “desperation.” Seeing this, he alleged that anyone could perform a feat like this in severe desperation, and he just may have been right. Whether from desperation, adrenaline, or what is known as hysterical strength, there have been documented cases of women, men, adults, and kids all experiencing inconceivable bouts of strength when confronted with a life-or-death situation.

10 Angela Cavallo

Angela Cavallo was in her late 50s in 1982, living in Lawrenceville, Georgia. Her teenage son, Tony, had a 1964 Chevrolet Impala and was working on the suspension in their driveway, trying to knock something loose. This knocking caused the car to wiggle off the jack before landing on the high school junior. As he lay unconscious under the vehicle, an eleven-year-old, Johnny Edwards, who was in town visiting his grandparents, saw what happened. He ran to the front door of Cavallo’s home and explained there had been an accident. In a panic, Angela ran out to the vehicle and began attempting to lift the car while screaming for help.

A 1964 Impala weighs 3,295 pounds (1,495 kilograms). This woman put all of her strength into lifting the rear of this vehicle, which weighed almost two tons, to free her son. Unbelievably, even while screaming and kicking at her son to rouse him so he could attempt to free himself from under the wheel well, Cavallo did, in fact, raise the car enough to release the pressure off Tony. Even more incredulous, she held this car up for around five minutes! The eleven-year-old was sent to collect neighbors to help while she somehow kept the car from falling back onto her son.

Finally, two men came and slid the jack back under the Impala so Tony could safely be pulled from underneath. Tony ended up with only scrapes and bruises and was able to leave the hospital after only a two-night stay. This mother may not have tossed the car over as The Hulk might’ve, but she had not only insane strength but also unimaginable endurance.^[1]

9 Lauren Kornacki

Lauren Kornacki was a recent college graduate living with her parents in Virginia in 2012. On August 1, she was looking for her dad to ask to borrow the car that weekend and couldn’t find him. After her mother confirmed that her dad was outside, she went back outside and found her father trapped under a BMW 525i. He was unresponsive and trapped with one arm pinned under his chest. She realized the jack had fallen, so she attempted to lift up the BMW herself.

At 22 years old and rather petite, it would be a stretch to believe Lauren would have been able to lift up a one-and-a-half-ton vehicle. Yet, in the extreme adrenaline surge, Lauren not only lifted the car off her father but also “threw it” off to the side. After freeing her father, Lauren started CPR, bringing back his ability to breathe on his own. He was immediately taken to the hospital.

With five fractured ribs, a fractured sternum and vertebrae, and some short-term loss of feeling in his arm, Lauren’s father would recover fully from the accident. It is stunning that a car bears enough weight to crush bones underneath it but can be picked up and tossed aside by someone.^[2]

8 Hannah and Haylee Smith

In Oregon, Jeff Smith, a 36-year-old father of two, sent his teenage daughters out to walk the dogs before going to work in the yard. He was attempting to pull a stump out of the ground when his foot stepped off the clutch momentarily as his boot was all muddy. In an instant, the tractor flipped, pinning him beneath it. Barely able to exhale, Jeff did everything he could do to yell for help. Knowing how much pressure was on his chest and that he had sent the girls off just a few minutes prior, Jeff wasn’t sure that anyone would be able to hear him. However, in less than a minute, he saw his girls were right there with him, attempting to dig their father out from underneath the three-thousand-pound tractor.

Hannah, 16, and Haylee, 14, realized that digging would not work. The tractor would need to be lifted if they were going to save their father. He instructed them on where to lift the tractor in between labored breaths. The two girls lifted the tractor the first time only long enough for Jeff to get a breath in before the tractor fell on him again. Thankfully, the girls gave it another try, and Jeff was able to wiggle out to safety.

Jeff escaped with little serious injury: a broken wrist and some bumps and bruises. Haylee pulled a muscle in the struggle, and Hannah reported waking up feeling like “an 80-year-old getting out of bed” the next morning. Jeff understood what was at stake, saying, “They saved my life.”^[3]

7 Cecil Stuckless

In July 2013, Frank Vatcher was replacing the brakes on a Jeep in Salvage, Newfoundland, with his father-in-law Cecil Stuckless. Frank sent Cecil out to his shed to grab a clamp he needed for the brakes. While he was gone, the Jeep somehow became unbalanced, and Frank was stuck alone in the garage with an SUV on top of him. Cecil heard Frank crying out for him to help and rushed back into the garage.

Cecil Stuckless was 72 years old when this event occurred. Without hesitation, he ran to the Jeep and was able to lift it enough for Frank to free himself. Upon seeing Frank, Cecil must’ve still been terrified he wasn’t going to make it. The Jeep fell on Frank with such force he needed 38 stitches in his head. Frank made a full recovery, and Cecil was considered to be a “Superman” in his community. Cecil denied this title, however, saying he “just did what he could do.” Cecil claims to have never lifted anything that heavy, which is pretty impressive to make that record at the age of 72.^[4]

6 Austin Smith

A 72-year-old lifting a car off a young man is quite impressive, but does a 15-year-old have the strength to lift a car that’s pinning his grandfather? Austin Smith was visiting his grandparents, and his 74-year-old Papa Ernie was in the garage fixing the brakes on an old vehicle, preparing it for another grandchild to use. Ernie noticed an oil leak under the car and went underneath to inspect the source. As Ernie pulled himself out, grabbing onto the bumper for a boost, the car shifted and pinned Ernie underneath. This was a 2,000-pound (907-kilogram) Buick, and Austin was terrified and had no idea what to do at first.

So fifteen-year-old Austin did the only thing he could think of and started trying to lift the one-ton vehicle off his grandfather. He knelt down and used all his might to lift up the Buick. Not only did Austin lift the car, but he also pushed the car back about two feet to free his grandfather.

Austin was a very active teen, involved in many sports and working out regularly, but he readily admits lifting one-ton vehicles is not something he would be able to do again. He stated that the only explanation was adrenaline and that “the good Lord upstairs helped me pick it up.” His grandfather suffered broken ribs and was hit in the head by the vehicle, explaining the feeling as an “explosion in my head.” Because of Austin’s miraculous strength, Papa Ernie was perfectly healed shortly after the incident.^[5]

5 Deputy J. Holt

In examples of this kind of miraculousness, many people might assume that the love for the person trapped allows these feats of strength, but that isn’t always the case. Deputy J. Holt, of Gloucester, Virginia, was assisting in an accident and watched as a car spun out nearby. He ran to the scene, where he found the car flipped over, and the daughter of the woman driving the SUV told him her mother was trapped. The child’s screams inside the SUV were horrific, asking someone to please help his mother. Deputy Holt had to coax the young boy out of the vehicle before he could do anything to help the driver. To top it all off, it was Mother’s Day weekend, and these children were on the verge of losing their mom. Once the little boy was out, he knew the only way to save her life was to get the vehicle off her immediately.

Deputy Holt placed his shoulder inside the door frame and told himself, “all I have to do is just stand up.” He then braced himself and did just that. He heaved the car up while the mother was surprisingly conscious enough to pull herself out from the steel deathtrap. She spent the entire time underneath the vehicle unable to breathe but immediately resumed breathing on her own when the SUV was lifted. She was sent to the hospital and made a full recovery. Admittedly, Deputy Holt might actually be a superhero. Holt was a veteran of the Iraq War and, just a year before this incident, had pulled two people from a burning house.^[6]

4 Kenny Franklin

Plenty of people have had shocking rides in Ubers for one reason or another, but Kenny Franklin’s experience may take the cake. Off to work one day, Kenny had called for an Uber, as he often did. In heavy traffic, the Uber driver began suffering from a seizure. As his foot was on the gas pedal at the onset of the seizure, his foot bore down on the pedal, accelerating with no one controlling the wheel. Incredibly, from the backseat, Kenny was able to gain control of the wheel, get the driver’s leg off the gas pedal, and pull the car over to safety. Having already saved his own life, the life of the Uber driver, and countless lives by preventing a major accident, he wasn’t finished yet.

A Florida State Trooper, Jack Hypes, pulled up behind the vehicle to assess this vehicle that had been driving erratically and came to a stop on the side of the road. Fortunately, by this time, the Uber driver had awakened but did not have his bearings about him. Unfortunately, thinking he still needed to get the car to safety, the driver mistakenly put it in reverse as Officer Hypes approached them.

He was hit, and as he rolled on impact, his body was pinned under the vehicle. They couldn’t simply move the car forward as Officer Hypes was pinned, and moving the vehicle could cause further damage and pain. The only option was to lift the car. Kenny mustered all his strength and lifted the car, allowing Hypes the time to get to safety. He suffered non-life-threatening injuries, and Kenny planned to get coffee with him shortly after the incident. Kenny has been called a hero in his hometown, but he just believes he was “in the right place, at the right time to help.”^[7]

3 Nick Harris

Nick Harris was dropping his daughter off at school on December 21, 2009. After his daughter happily trotted off to school, another little girl was walking along the sidewalk nearby. As six-year-old Ashlyn Hough walked, a car was pulling out of the driveway. Nick Harris just happened to look over when Ashlyn was struck by the vehicle backing out and rolled underneath it. Without any hesitation, Nick leaped out of his car and ran toward the accident. As he came upon the scene, he realized the vehicle was lying on little Ashlyn’s hips.

Nick has no idea how he did it, but he “grabbed the car, picked it up, and moved it out of the way.” Ashlyn was taken to the hospital immediately, but Nick was able to meet up with her soon after. He was “expecting her to be in a half cast,” but Ashlyn suffered no worse than some lumps and a rash. Nick has tried to lift a vehicle again four or five times but simply could not do it. He believes it was another case of being in the right place at the right time.^[8]

2 Zac Clark

Sixteen-year-old Zac Clark was gardening with his mother, Lora, outside their home in Butler, Ohio, on a Saturday in September 2019. A neighbor was working on his Volkswagen Passat in a house nearby. Suddenly, the wife of that neighbor began screaming for help. Lora and Zac both immediately took off running to offer whatever help they could. Zac was shocked to see only the legs of his neighbor while everything from the waist up was pinned under the VW. His head and ribs were being crushed under the vehicle’s weight. Lora told her son, “there’s no way we can lift this car,” but he knew he was not giving up.

Zac found the strength to lift the Passat, weighing over 3,000 pounds (1,360 kilograms), off his neighbor. Lora and the neighbor’s wife pulled the man from under the car. He had fractured ribs and facial wounds that Zac described as ‘messed up pretty bad,” but the neighbor would recover without any lasting injuries. While lifting an entire vehicle himself was certainly shocking, no one who knew Zac was surprised that he had done everything he could to help. His football coach asserted he “just has a huge heart.” Zac had lost his father the previous year. The incident made him think of his own dad, and he got the strength to lift the car because he “wanted to be able to save him to be with his family.”^[9]

1 Lydia Angiyou

Departing from lifting vehicles, Lydia Angiyou discovered her ultimate strength when confronted with something completely different. In a very small town in northern Quebec, Lydia was on a walk with her children and happened upon some kids playing hockey near the Community Center. Only these kids were no longer playing but screaming incessantly. Lydia panicked when she realized they were saying “polar bear.” Lydia was now face-to-face with a 700-pound (317-kilogram) polar bear, with her two sons standing at her side. She told her children to run and attempted to distract the bear from the group of children behind her.

Barely five feet (1.5 meters) tall and under 100 pounds (45 kilograms), 41-year-old Lydia decided the best way to save the children was to wrestle with a polar bear. She yelled and kicked and even punched one of the deadliest bears on the globe. The bear swatted Lydia, and she fell to the ground. As the bear stood over her, Lydia “bicycle-kicked” at him, resulting in another clawed smack to the face. Finally, the kids had gotten far enough away to get help. A neighbor came and saw Lydia “wrestling with the bear” and got his brother’s shotgun from his home nearby.

He shot four rounds up in the air to get the bear’s attention. He needed to get a clear shot as Lydia was still tussling with the bear. After the fourth round, the bear stopped long enough for a clear shot and then three more. After the bear was put down, Lydia was rushed to the hospital, covered in blood. At first, the only thing she could say was “bear, bear,” completely in shock. Incomprehensibly, Lydia was left only with a black eye and some scrapes. A massive polar bear was thwarted by petite and quiet Lydia Angiyou. It’s astonishing what people are capable of when put to the challenge.^[10]

Research has suggested that, in the last 50 years, animal populations have fallen by a stunning 70%. In the greater world at large it’s not just animals that vanish, it’s just about everything you can think of. When’s the last time you saw a rotary phone? A cassette player? Animals, companies, technology, even countries come and go. No one is immune to the tides of time. But sometimes a twist of fate can grab something from the brink and save it from extinction at the last minute. 

10. Tom Cruise saved Ray-Ban 

In 2020, the company that owns the Ray-Ban brand of sunglasses made €7.7 billion, which is about $7.5 billion. They also own the Oakley brand and a few others but suffice it to say, Ray-Bans are popular. But that wasn’t always the case. In the early 80s, the company was struggling and sales were going downhill. There were rumors of even discontinuing them entirely. And then Tom Cruise happened.

In the poster for the 1983 movie Risky Business, Cruise is sporting a pair of the iconic glasses, and he wears them in the film. Sales of Wayfarers, the kind he was wearing, increased by 50% after the film’s release.

Three years later, Cruise wore Ray-Bans in Top Gun and sales increased by another 40%. By 1988, director Barry Levinson was actually opposing Cruise wearing them in the movie Rain Man because he was so closely associated with the brand. He wore them anyway, and may have single-handedly saved the company thanks to his work in the 80s.

9. Plastic Billiard Balls Saved Elephants

It’s hard to comprehend just how brutal the ivory trade has been to the elephant population. There are less than one million elephants alive today. In the year 1800 there were 26 million in India. The wide scale slaughter is almost unbelievable. But it would have been worse if not for a man named John Wesley Hyatt.

As the 19th century was coming to a close, billiards were increasingly gaining popularity. What many people today may not realize is that,at that time, billiard balls were often made of ivory. So for the sake of pool and snooker, thousands and thousands of elephants were dying. But even the manufacturers were not entirely happy about this because ivory was expensive. If a ball wasn’t made right, it would break and a single tusk could only make four or five balls. It was believed at the time that there were not enough elephants in the world to keep up with demands.

John Wesley Hyatt devised a solution that arguably saved elephants for certain extinction.This was a time when plastics were still relatively new. Hyatt developed a new plastic called celluloid in 1869 that was hard, durable and perfect for billiard balls. It was also much cheaper than ivory. The industry switched over and though elephants were and still are poached for ivory; it was dramatically improved. 

8. The Man Who Pretended to be a Crane

Birds are some of the most remarkable creatures in the world. From tiny hummingbirds with their 1,260 beats per minute heart rate to the oldest confirmed bird in history, a pink cockatoo, that made it all the way to 83-years-old. And then there are whooping cranes, to which George Archibald dedicated his life. 

In 1942, there were about 15 whooping cranes left in the wild. Bringing them back from the edge took the conservation work of many people, but George Archibald deserves special recognition for his dedication. To save the species he worked with a female crane named Tex who had been raised in captivity, imprinted on humans, and essentially didn’t know how to be a bird. But she would be integral to saving a species whose genetic diversity was so very limited. 

Since Tex related to humans and perhaps even believed she was one, Archibald did what he felt was the only logical thing. He courted her. He moved her into his home and engaged in rituals like nest building and dancing. The idea was that, if she bonded with him, she would naturally begin ovulating because she expected to mate. Then the scientists could take over, artificially inseminate her, and breed a new generation of little cranes. And, remarkably, after years of trying, it worked. After several failures, they had a chick named Gee Whiz in 1982. Though Tex unfortunately died not long after, the story gained international attention and today their population is around 800. 

7. Darwin’s Theories Saved the Wine Industry

Charles Darwin is obviously best known for his contributions to evolutionary science but he’s also arguably responsible for saving European wine from going extinct, something surely many people today are happy about.

He didn’t directly save wine but his work did as European grape growers became overcome by a parasitic louse called phylloxera. It infected the roots and killed the plants. It was determined that the little monsters had come from America and a solution based on Darwin’s theories of adaptation was devised. European vines would be grafted to American roots that were resistant to the louse. They still engage in this practice today.

6. Life Magazine Saved the Shar-Pei

Shar-Peis are not the most popular dog breed in the world, but they’re certainly still very recognizable and weirdly cute with their wrinkly bodies. The entire breed nearly went extinct in the 1940s thanks to the Chinese government putting a large tax on the dogs, native to the country, causing their numbers to drop so sharply that Guinness declared them the rarest breed in the world in the ’60s. 

A Hong Kong breeder tried to gain international attention for the breed to save them and Life Magazine ended up putting one of the dogs on the cover in 1979. This brought them to the attention of American dog lovers and demand went through the roof, bringing the breed back from the edge. 

5. Avocados Were Saved by Giant Sloths

Have you ever wondered why an avocado has such a giant pit? Compared to literally any other fruit out there, the avocado doesn’t make a lot of sense. Especially when you consider how other plants with fruit tend to reproduce. Animals generally eat the fruit and the seeds are spread through their scat. But an avocado pit is huge and inedible, at least by modern standards. Not so much by prehistoric ones, though, and that’s when the avocado was saved from certain doom by giant sloths. 

Avocados date back to the Cenozoic era, some 65 million years ago. As mammals became the dominant life forms after the dinosaurs, things like giant sloths would have eaten avocados whole, wandered the countryside, and spread the seeds around. The massive seed made sense because large animals could eat them and the seed would survive their digestion. 

Wild avocado growth spread from there and even though giant sloths and their brethren died out 13,000 years ago, the avocados had spread far enough that humans could begin to cultivate them and keep the species, which might have otherwise died out when their seed-spreading predators vanished, from disappearing. 

4. The Great Depression Helped Save Turkeys

You don’t think of the Great Depression as being the sort of thing that saved anyone or anything, but that’s not entirely true. The Depression had a huge effect on turkeys. Turkeys numbered in the millions before European settlers arrived. In the 1930s, there were about 30,000 left and 20 states had lost them entirely. 

Though there were other conservation efforts in place to save the species, the Depression gave them what they needed most – space. As families lost their farms, the land returned to nature. Crops like cotton, that had no benefit to wild animals, vanished and other crops returned, giving habitat and food to the animals. Wild turkeys were able to breed in peace again and start to build their numbers back up.

3. Poisoned Toad Sausages May Save Northern Quolls

A northern quoll is a little marsupial that weighs up to a couple of pounds and can be found in Australia. They also have the unfortunate habit of eating cane toads. Cane toads are both toxic and invasive in Australia so the quolls had no history with them to know that they needed to be avoided. As a result, quolls try to eat cane toads and the toxins kill them. The result has been a devastating blow to the northern quoll population. 

Researchers are trying to protect the marsupials but controlling the cane toad population has not been successful, so efforts to dissuade the quolls from eating them have popped up via creative means. In other words, people are making toad sausages.

Researchers are making sausages out of non-toxic parts of cane toads and poisoning them. Not with a lethal chemical, but one that will make quolls sick. They drop the sausages ahead of where cane toads currently exist with the intention that quolls will eat them, associate cane toads with being sick, and when the real toads show up, they won’t eat them. It’s a novel idea but there’s been mixed results as the program is still relatively new, though evidence has shown it does produce positive results. 

2. The Great Barrier Reef is Being Saved by Robots That Kill Starfish

The Great Barrier Reef in Australia has been at risk due to climate change, pollution and m, perhaps unexpectedly, predatory starfish. The Crown of Thorns starfish feasts on coral and is incredibly hard to get rid of. You can cut one in half and it’ll just turn into two starfish. To kill them they have to be either poisoned or completely destroyed, which is obviously not easy to do in the ocean. Not for the living, anyway. But for a robot?

The COTsbot is a drone that patrols the reef and attacks crown of thorns starfish, injecting them with a toxin. The starfish normally have a sustainable population, but outbreaks occur and they can be devastating. It’s been estimated 40% of the reef’s loss is due to the starfish. Farm runoff and overfishing of their natural predators may be the reason. A COTSbot carries enough poison to take out 200 of them and can patrol for eight hours straight, which is far better than a human diver. 

1. Peregrine Falcons Were Saved by Sex Hats

The fastest living thing in the world is the peregrine falcon which has a dive speed of 200 miles per hour. These little birds of prey are pretty amazing, but we almost lost them as a result of the pesticide known as DDT in the ’50s. DDT had the effect of making the eggs of birds non-viable. The shells would be too soft and no chick could develop. By the 1960s there were no falcons left in the wild in the US east of the Rockies, and few left elsewhere.  

An effort to save the birds grew, and that required an artificial breeding program. Breeding falcons is no easy task, however. It requires several people to hold the bird, a delicate and dangerous task, and then an attempt to get it to produce sperm which is not always easy and greatly stresses the bird out. The result was maybe two or three birds being born per year. 

A remarkable innovation by a falconer named Lester Boyd turned the tides and saved the birds. Boyd invented a falcon sex hat. It is colloquially referred to as an F-Hat, and you can guess what the F stands for. A falconer must wear the hat all the time around the male, they must wear the same clothes to make the bird comfortable, and they need to spend as much time with them as possible during breeding season. Once the male gets comfortable, they hop on the hat on the falconer’s head and, you know, breed with the hat. A tiny honeycomb of chambers collects the sperm, and it’s immediately transferred by a tiny syringe to a female. This method worked incredibly well, and it saved the species. It’s believed there are around 3,000 breeding pairs in North America today.