Another hero saves the day!
Retired fireman Rocco Chierichella
Some idiot left their vapor smoking device in their carry-on, attached to a battery so it could charge. Good grief!
Retired NYC fireman Rocco Chierichella sprung into action to extinguish the fire. Good man to have on your next flight!
Watch the story in the video below or read the details here.
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Hoorah!
Photo from Hernando County Sheriff’s Office
From NY Post:
“A retired Florida Marine who miraculously found a missing toddler in dense woods Friday after hearing his faint whimpers is being hailed as the Sunshine State’s “man of the year.”
Joshua “JJ” Rowland, 2, vanished Thursday after wandering away from his home in Brooksville, setting off a frantic search involving law enforcement, canines, drones, and hundreds of volunteers.
Roy Link, 62, a retired parks department worker in Hernando County, was preparing to go fishing when he heard of JJ’s disappearance and joined the desperate effort as hopes began to fade.
“Something told me no, gotta do this.” Link later told reporters.
After 24 hours passed with no sign of the tot, Link said, he was combing through a wooded area several miles from JJ’s home and strained his ears for any unusual sounds.
“I listened good,” he said. “I heard like a whimpering kind of noise and at that point, I was like, there’s no kids here, it’s gotta be JJ. And sure enough, I went in the woods, 100 feet from where I was at.”
The frightened boy reached out to Link and began calling for his mother.
“We were just talking and both of us were getting a little emotional,” Hernando County Sheriff Al Nienhuis said alongside the local hero in a video posted to Facebook. “Little JJ climbed onto him and didn’t let go. He was so excited to see him.”
Read the whole story here.
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She saved herself and her 90-year-old mom. You go, girl!
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Dylan had an Angel watching over him!
From Daily Mail:
“A 21-year-old free diver was miraculously rescued by his family after he was swept away by the Gulf Stream while diving more than five miles from the Florida Keys.
Diver and spear fisherman Dylan Gartenmayer described the moment he heard the hum of his grandfather’s boat as he hopelessly lay watching the sun set over shark-infested waters.
Hours earlier on Thursday afternoon, he had been with two friends as he descended for his final dive of the day around the West Sambo Reef.
Beneath the surface he was caught in a current that drew him 150 feet below the surface and spat him out around a mile away.
His friends notified both the US Coast Guard and his family, who began a desperate search, racing against the setting sun.
After emerging he swam around a mile back towards the reef, where he cut free mooring buoys which he tied together to form a makeshift raft. ‘I was watching the sun drop pretty quickly,’ said Gartenmayer in a video posted to social media.
Fishing bait started washing up around him, attracting the attention of sharks. I’d just seen a reef shark swam past me,’ he said. ‘I had a bunch of bait start blowing up around, I could see mackerel skyrocketing.’
As the temperature began to drop and a chill set in, the diver described how he used the buoys to keep his body as far out of the water as possible. ‘I was starting to shiver at that point and my hands were starting to feel a little numb, so were my toes, so I knew this was starting to get serious,’ he said.
A rescue mission involving coast guard boats and aircraft was underway, but they were unable to spot him. ‘I had a small plane fly above but they didn’t see me,’ he said. ‘About 30 minutes later they flew back again, still didn’t see me.’
‘Shortly after that the sun had disappeared past the horizon. Looking to the east it was pitch black, looking to the west you could see the remnants of the sunset. As I saw the sun disappear I knew things were starting to get a little more dire,’ he said.
But then the amateur search party led by his family struck gold. ‘By some miracle my parents and everybody else on board my grandfather’s boat ended up driving and basically landing right on top of me,’ he said.
‘I could hear the engines running and I knew from there that was actually my grandfather’s boat.’
Read the whole story here.
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A generous man: Hody Childress (center)
God Bless Hody.
From Daily Mail:
“An Alabama farmer spent some of the little money that he had to help members of his community to pay for their medical bills. Not even Hody Childress’s family members knew about his generosity until shortly before his death at the age of 80 on January 1.
The revelation about his acts was first revealed to many at his January 5 funeral, after the town’s pharmacist told family members.
Childress’s daughter Tania Nix told The Washington Post that she didn’t know what prompted her father to go to Geraldine Drugs in Geraldine, Alabama, a town of around 900, each month and give $100 to the pharmacist to help those struggling.
Nix did speculate that when her mother struggled with multiple sclerosis, her medical bills and drugs were expensive. Her mother, Peggy, passed away in 1999. He began his altruistic tradition in 2012.
Nix said that a woman recently wrote to her to tell her that Childress’s money allowed her to afford an EpiPen for her son, while another said that she burst into tears in the store when she was told that there was a fund that would help her to pay for her and her daughter’s prescription.
The pharmacist at the drug store, Brooke Walker said that Childress told her when he first handed over the money: ‘Don’t tell a soul where the money came from – if they ask, just tell them it’s a blessing from the lord.’
Nix said that a woman recently wrote to her to tell her that Childress’s money allowed her to afford an EpiPen for her son, while another said that she burst into tears in the store when she was told that there was a fund that would help her to pay for her and her daughter’s prescription.
The pharmacist at the drug store, Brooke Walker said that Childress told her when he first handed over the money: ‘Don’t tell a soul where the money came from – if they ask, just tell them it’s a blessing from the lord.’
The pharmacist told a family member that she didn’t let Childress’s donation go on painkillers, only antibiotics and life-sustaining medication.
On two occasions she used the money for non-medical reasons, once to help a woman who was in an abusive relationship to get back on her feet and once to help an elderly man who was caring for his special needs son and his wife, who had broken her hip, to pay for a used washer and dryer.
Nix told WaPo that her father told about his donations as he became gravely ill with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease over the holidays.
She said: ‘He told me he’d been carrying a $100 bill to the pharmacist in Geraldine on the first of each month, and he didn’t want to know who she’d helped with it — he just wanted to bless people with it.’
Read the whole story here.
h/t Breitbart
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A cancer patient went to the hairdresser. The stylist then surprised her.
Be sure to watch until the end!
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Oorah!
Yorkie Avery returned home safely!
From Daily Mail:
“A former Marine Corps intelligence operator who helped capture al-Qaeda insurgents in Iraq used his skills to track down a Maryland dognapper after a Yorkie’s sudden disappearance left a family devastated.
Rick Machamer, who lives in Arlington, Virginia, learned Raquel Witherspoon’s beloved pet had been stolen after watching the local TV news and believed he could help.
Witherspoon was sent texts together with a video of her dog, Avery, a Yorkie, locked in a cage together with a ransom demand for $1,200.
Despite filing the case with the police, she was told that it would be a week before officers could even begin looking at the case, so she went to the local media noting how the dog was an emotional support animal for her 12-year-old daughter, Semaj.
Machamer, who owns a Norwegian elkhound and a Pomeranian was troubled by the thought of someone stealing his beloved pets and got in contact with the family. ‘I couldn’t fathom my reaction if someone took one of my dogs, especially if they sent a picture of one in a cage,’ he said to the Washington Post.
The former military man’s skills lay in tracking and gathering information. His skills were such that he was honored for taking part in operations that saw him help capture al-Qaeda leaders in al-Anbar province in Iraq. Machamer, a United States Marine Corps veteran completed three combat deployments in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom.
Hero Marine Rick Machamer
He offered to help Witherspoon track down her dog and she quickly accepted. Avery was dognapped in June, with Machamer’s involvement in rescuing the pet only coming to light this weekend.
Machamer, who runs a corporate intelligence firm that carries out opposition research for political campaigns, first used his resources to trace the phone number of the dognapper.
He ran the suspect’s phone number through an online database and used software to extract geolocation data from the video of Avery in her cage but it yielded no clues.
He then searched through customer reviews of local salons near Witherspoon’s home, hoping he might find the perpetrator thanks to her distinctive dyed red hair that could be clearly seen on doorcam video. Once again, no useful information could be gleaned.
Machamer then decided to run the dognappers number through his personal Instagram account in an effort to see if any profiles were connected to the number.
Incredibly, Machamer found a lead through the social media platform, which linked him to a body piercing business near Witherspoon’s home and a post that also linked to the owner’s personal Instagram account.
Machamer discovered that the owner had posted about another dog that had gone missing in Witherspoon’s neighborhood before Avery was taken.
A little bit of Googling saw him come up with a social media post about the missing dog.
There was even a picture of the family speaking to police about the dog together with someone that looked distinctly like the dognapper from Witherspoon’s doorbell camera. The photograph even displayed the address of the home.
Four days after Avery went missing, Witherspoon also received a tip that someone in the same house that had just been pinpointed by Machamer was indeed behind the dognapping.
Together the pair gave the information to police and Avery was recovered two days later after a Prince George’s County Police detective went to the home and retrieved the dog.
‘I was like, “They got him back!” said Witherspoon’s daughter, Semaj. ‘I didn’t want to face the reality of not seeing my dog again.
A 16-year-old girl was charged with stealing and admitted to being involved in the theft together with an attempt to extort Witherspoon in return for the pet. She pleaded guilty before trial.”
Read the whole story here.
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How amazing would it be to see something like this?
Read the full story about this whale watching adventure here.
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Take a break from all the chaos in DC and enjoy some cuteness!
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