Thanks. I so admire those who would risk their lives for another. Also the entries need not be directly connected to Boston, New Town or any other specific catastrophe.
Well, I found someone who I saw on TV yesterday. This is Natalie Stavas, a pediatric resident at Children's Hospital. She was running in the Marathon on Monday and was approaching the finish line when the bombs went off. Realizing what had happened, she ran toward the chaos, dodging police who were trying to get everybody out of danger, and triaged multiple people on the spot. She very likely saved a few lives by stabilizing the victims before the ambulances came to take them away.
Not every hero walks on 2 feet! Meet my friend Nijat, the Hero Rat. He detects landmines in Mozambique: If you'd like to learn more about HeroRat training, have a look at a short Youtube clip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=3IxU-MZ12VE Adopt a mine detection or a TB detection rat at http://apopo.org for as little as 5 Euros/ 6$ a year
For anyone looking for avs of their own to enter, any shots of firemen, policemen, soldiers, or anyone in public service, medicine, rescue, etc., would all make great examples. Civil rights leaders, from MLK to that little girl in Pakistan, would also be good choices.
Hugh Thompson (1943-2006), who landed his helicopter in the village of My Lai in 1968 in an attempt to protect civilians from being massacred, and reported the atrocities he had seen to higher authorities. He was turned against by many colleagues, vilified by members of congress and received numerous death threats, but 30 years later he was awarded the Soldier's Medal, the highest decoration for non-combat bravery, for his actions in My Lai.
^^ Fantastic. That's an easy vote. An interesting character. She would have been a good fit for the Folk Heroes contest. I should have mentioned earlier that you can find a lot of great stories at the University of Richmond Heroes Blog. It was created by my pal Scotty (who is scottydog here) to support his two books on the topic of heroism. I've contributed about eight essays to the blog and two of them appeared in the second book.
Actually, the German police does have a few explosives detection rats (admittedly, not many of them). They use them at border controls and at airports. Rats have as fine a sense of smelling as dogs but since they are so small they can get into places dogs can't. I believe there are a few drug-sniffer rats as well, but I am not 100% sure.