NFL player K.J. Osborn of the Minnesota Vikings found himself in the right place at the right time recently. Osborn was riding in an Uber in Austin, TX when he and his driver saw the car had crashed under a bridge and had flames coming out from under the hood. His Uber driver hopped out of the car and said they should call 911.
Osbornknew they had to see if the driver was ok. The two of them went to the burning car and realized the driver was still alive but unable to move. “I don’t have experience in this. So in my head, I’m thinking, ‘Oh, this car can blow up at any second. It’ll all be over. But my, you know, my Uber driver, he went right up to the car, he opened the door.” The two of them, along with two other people, pulled the driver away from the burning car before it was fully engulfed in flames.
Osborn tweeted about the incident on March 6 with pictures from the scene of the accident. “Last night myself and these 3 absolute heroes helped save a man’s life by rescuing him from a vehicle up in flames after a bad crash. A situation I’d never imagine being a part of in a million years.” Both Austin Fire and Police Departments confirmed there was a one car crash incident at 2:35 a.m. A spokesperson for the Austin Fire Department said the driver had driven off the road into a grassy area and then hit a concrete overpass pillar at a high rate of speed.
An Austin Police Department statement said when EMS arrived on the scene, the driver had already been rescued by Good Samaritans from the Audi A4 and the car was by then “fully involved” in fire. The driver was treated on scene and transported with serious but non-life threatening injuries. Osborn said that though the saying goes “wrong place at the wrong time,” he was glad to be there in that driver’s time of need. “I was at the exact place, the right place at the right time. So I was happy we were able to do that” he said.
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In a story that sounds like an episode of Grey’s Anatomy, a Philadelphia surgeon ran about a mile to and from a hospital to pick up a liver for his patient after a courier’s route was blocked by thousands of marathon runners. Charles Rowe, 66, was waiting on an operating table with his surgeon Adam Bodzin, scheduled for a life saving liver transplant. Meanwhile, an out-of-town van driver for Philly-based Gift of Life Donor Program found his route to Thomas Jefferson University Hospital would be blocked by the Dietz & Watson Philadelphia Half Marathon at two separate points.
Event organizers and police have access points for emergencies going towards the hospital, but the courier couldn’t find them even after consulting police. When Bodzin heard about the delay he decided to get the liver himself. Clad in sneakers and teal scrubs, Bodzin weaved his way at a full run from the hospital entrance through the stream of runners.
Reaching the driver and taking the sealed container with the liver on ice, he zigzagged back the same way before hitching a ride with the police back to the hospital on the other side of the marathon route. Thanks to Bodzin’s quick thinking, they managed to transplant the liver successfully, an hour after the time when the liver begins to deteriorate.
Rowe made a full recovery and left the hospital 6 days later and considers Bodzin a hero. “He went beyond the call of duty. I guess he’s got a cape underneath that white jacket” Rowe said. When asked about his hero status he modestly said he would describe himself as “more of a biker” and he hopes the story inspires people to become organ donors.
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Foo Fighters frontman Dave Grohl spent over 24 hours volunteering at an LA shelter preparing barbecue for hundreds of homeless people. Grace Ancheta, director of development at Hope the Mission said brisket, pork butt, ribs and more were delivered to Hope the Mission’s Trebek Center in Northridge, California on Feb. 22.
Grohl arrived around 3pm and worked away cutting up and preparing the meat for the smoker to be served for dinner at 6pm on Feb 23. Once the meat was ready to be put in the smoker at midnight, Grohl and his fellow barbecuers took turns smoking the meat overnight — even as a major winter storm moved through Southern California, dumping hail and rain on the shelter that night.
Once the meat was ready at 3pm, Grohl helped prepare and served hundreds. Ancheta said Grohl was very gracious, taking pictures with people who recognized him. “He wanted no glory for it, he was like, ‘I just want to do this for you guys and give back in that way” Ancheta said. Grohl told staffers at Hope the Mission he finds getting into the barbecue pit therapeutic after he comes offstage.
“Whenever he comes off of work or anything else, that’s what he wants to do,” Ancheta says. “He wants to cook for people. And by the way — it was amazing. It’s the best barbecue we’ve had.” Grohl’s visit came as Hope the Mission’s CEO Ken Craft and president and CFO Rowan Vansleve are running 350 miles across the desert from the Las Vegas Strip back to Los Angeles to raise money for the mission’s latest campaign. Vansleve posted a video Grohl sent to support the “All in for Housing” campaign. “Keep it up, we’ve been out here all night cooking, you got to get back here soon, because we’re all in” Grohl said in the video.
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A South Carolina family has helped raise more than $260,000 for a 72-year-old Domino’s pizza worker who fell on their porch while delivering their meal. Barbara Gillespie can now retire, according to Lacey Keighron of Moncks Corner. A TikTok video of Gillespie falling on the Keighrons’ porch on Feb. 2 went viral.
The video came from a doorbell camera, which captured Gillespie tripping while carrying several boxes of Domino’s pizza. The woman struggled to get up while Keighron’s husband went onto the porch to assist her. “I open the door and there she is just laying on the ground trying to get up. She was more worried about the food than anything else. And I was like, ‘I don’t care about the food. I care about you” Kevin Keighron said.
Lacey uploaded the video and started a gofundme that said “We would like to bless her by bringing a ‘tip’ to help her with anything she may need. She is an older woman who fell and only cared about the food she dropped. Let’s show her some kindness and take off some of this burden that our economy is causing the older generations especially.”
The video has been viewed more than 15.5 million times on TikTok and donations poured in.
Lacey Keighton said that she and her husband never expected to get such an outpouring of support — and cash. “We never expected to get as much as we did. We were just so excited and thrilled (to) be able to tell her the next day.”
The Keighrons surprised Gillespie at work with flowers, chocolates, and a large amount of money. Gillespie said “I couldn’t even think they were asking me for my phone number. I couldn’t remember my phone number, I am just standing there — and tears are welling in my eyes — and I am going, ‘I can’t believe this. This isn’t happening to me.’” Barbara was able to give her 2 week notice and finally retire with the funds raised.
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A Utah middle-school teacher, Garrett Jones, decided to use a tiktok trend involving people requesting donations toward personal trips, weddings and dream cars, for a charitable cause. When he uploaded the six second video, he had no idea the video would help raise over $30,000 for school lunch debt.
In the video, the seventh- and eighth-grade teacher at Heber City’s Rocky Mountain Middle School wrote “If 2,673 people Venmo’d me $1 I could pay the outstanding lunch fees of every student in my school because the last thing a kid should be worrying about is how much the own for meals at the place they’re legally obligated to be.”
Garrett said he spoke to the lunch ladies at his school the day after posting the video when it had raised around $800 and realized he had underestimated the amount of debt at his school but figured the donations would at least help some students. As the video gained traction, the donations from strangers kept pouring in. Most of the donations were all small amounts of one to three dollars.
The video touched on the generosity of a lot of people. Jones gave an update saying “I was blown away. I was literally expecting, best-case scenario, maybe we’d get a couple hundred bucks.” Garrett was able to pay the $8,600 student lunch debt at his school and the rest of the funds will help pay lunch debt in the Wasatch County School District.
He said he decided to jump in on the trend because he sees a lot of students hanging out in the halls during lunchtime this year after the free school lunch program put in place during the pandemic ended. He added that he almost didn’t post the video at all but he’s so glad he did.
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Michael Jordan celebrated his 60th birthday with the largest donation to the Make-a-Wish Foundation in history. His $10 million donation will go to “create an endowment to provide the funds needed to make future wishes possible for kids with critical illnesses,” the foundation said in a release. The gift is the largest given by an individual in the foundation’s 43-year history.
Jordan said “Witnessing the strength and resilience of the organization’s kids has been a continuous inspiration. Witnessing their strength and resilience during such a tough time in their lives has truly been an inspiration. I can’t think of a better birthday gift than seeing others join me in supporting Make-A-Wish so that every child can experience the magic of having their wish come true.”
The Chicago Bulls legend has partnered with the organization for 34 years and has become increasingly generous with his fortune over the years. The first wish Jordan granted happened in 1989 and the organization said he has granted hundreds of wishes to children all over the world. In 2008, Jordan was named a Make-A-Wish ambassador “for the life-changing impact he has had on wish kids and their families.” In 2021 he donated $10 million to Novant Health for the opening of two new children’s hospitals in his home state of North Carolina, the same company to which he gave $7 million 4 years before that.
President and CEO of Make-A-Wish America Leslie Motter applauded Jordan’s ability to create a legacy both on and off the court. “Everyone knows about Michael’s legacy on the basketball court, but it’s what he has consistently done off the court when no one’s watching that makes him a true legend for wish families and the wider Make-A-Wish community. Michael, using his birthday as a chance to make history for Make-A-Wish speaks to the quality of his character and his loyal dedication to making life better for children with critical illnesses. We hope that the public will be inspired to follow in his footsteps by helping make wishes come true.”
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A 17-year-old saved a man and his dog after the 83-year-old’s Jeep plunged through the ice on an Iowa lake. The Okoboji High School student was ice fishing and watching a nearby snowmobile race on the lake when he saw a Jeep plunge into the ice around 3 p.m. Joe Salmon, a wrestler, football player and track athlete, called 911 as he rushed to help Lee.
Salmon jumped into the frigid water in Iowa’s East Okoboji Lake to save Thomas Lee and his dog Cooper. Four other men, Corey McConnell, Kody Harrelson, Cody Chester, and Chris Parks, also assisted in pulling Lee and his dog to safety. The heroic scene was captured via drone footage by photographer Tom Gustafson, who shared it on Facebook.
The video shows Salmon break the back window of the sinking Jeep and lean through the back window to free the dog. He tosses the dog toward the four other men, who pull the dog from the water. Salmon then climbs into the back window and makes his way to the front of the Jeep to pull Lee, whose foot was stuck, out through the area of the back window.
Salmon freed Lee and helped him out of the back window. Another man jumped into the icy water and helped pull Lee onto land. Salmon then jumps from the Jeep back onto land and sprints up a hill to continue ice fishing. Lee was taken to nearby Lakes Regional Healthcare and did not suffer any injuries while his dog was cared for by rescuers at a nearby store.
Salmon said of the rescue “I took one step and the water went to about my chest. I got on the bumper of the rear and tried opening the back door, but all the windows were locked, but one guy gave me a knife and I hit the back glass a couple of times. I’m happy that he was OK and the dog was OK. It was just crazy at the time.”
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The co-founder of Airbnb.org donated $25 million to support the Dutch nonprofit The Ocean Cleanup as they prepare to assemble and deploy the largest plastic capture system ever developed for use in the ocean. “I’m proud to partner with The Ocean Cleanup in their crucial work to remove harmful plastics from our oceans,” said Joe Gebbia, co-founder of Airbnb and Samara. “The Ocean Cleanup has created systems and technology that actually work at scale. In order for them to deploy across our oceans and rivers, they now need to scale their funding. It is my hope that this donation can inspire others to act.”
The Ocean Cleanup’s pilot-scale ocean cleaning system, System 002, has been deployed in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch (GPGP) located between Hawai’i and California since late 2021. It has so far removed roughly 440,000 pounds of plastic that otherwise would have remained trapped for decades or more. This pilot system is now in the process of being scaled up to the largest, most cost-effective ocean cleaning system ever developed, and will feature a capture area of 1.5 miles across, and a three-vessel team that will allow it to operate 24-7.
As the only group currently cleaning the trillions of plastic pieces in the GPGP, The Ocean Cleanup has streamlined their cleaning systems to be as cost-effective as possible, allowing their entirely not-for-profit income generation and any potential donations to go far. Ocean Cleanup founder Boyan Slat has been developing the capture system for a decade, and has gradually enlarged and improved it based on fieldwork harvesting plastic from the GPGP. System 03, cleans ten times faster than the previous system and could clean all the plastic patches of the world’s oceans with about 10-50 systems.
Slat said “Joe’s continued support of The Ocean Cleanup’s mission has a direct impact on our operations all over the world. Thanks, in part, to his generous assistance, we are able to scale up our work in oceans and rivers, helping us reach our goal of ridding the world’s oceans of plastic. On behalf of the world’s largest ecosystem, we are immensely grateful for the support.” Slat’s work in the GPGP will go down as one of the greatest accomplishments in the 21st century.
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Teens from the Boys and Girls Club of Boston (BGCB) Ready to Work program were given free laptops as part of a collaboration between AT&T and the Boys and Girls Clubs of Boston. The 250 laptop giveaway was part of BGCB’s Ready-to-Work program, which helps high school club members focus on employment opportunities through personal mentoring, resume design workshops, job fairs, interview training and other opportunities to prepare for employment opportunities.
AT&T has given each member a free laptop Courtesy of Boys and Girls Clubs of Boston. The 10-year-old program consists of nine clubs spanning 22 of Boston’s 23 boroughs. As students received laptops from the school for online classes, Ready to Work began to take shape to provide club members with a way to virtually prepare for employment opportunities.
As students returned to full-time classroom instruction, schools began reclaiming laptops, making it difficult for many high school students to access the Internet and participate in Ready to Work. As in person classes resumed, many teens lost access to many online resources and AT&T wanted to fix that lack in access to technology. The surprise took place at Berkshire Partners Blue Hill Boys & Girls Club, where 140 club members attended a teenage careers fair before receiving their laptops. The remaining 110 members who could not attend also received their laptops after the event.
AT&T Atlantic Region President John Emra said in a statement “Our AT&T employees are committed to giving back to the Boston communities where they live, work and play. These great kids are the future of our city, our economy and our company. We are grateful for the opportunity to spend time with them and for the life changing work of Robert Lewis and everyone else at the Boys & Girls Clubs of Boston.”
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A Massachusetts man jumped into action when another driver lost consciousness behind the wheel while on interstate 93. A nearby driver recorded the rescue attempt and put it up on TikTok where the surreal rescue went viral. The video shows a blue suv brushing along the guardrail as it drives down the snowy highway and other vehicles slowing down. The camera pans to the right where a black suv is stopped and suddenly a man is seen sprinting across several lanes and dodging cars to reach the runaway vehicle with little regard to his own safety.
The man, Adolfo Molina, runs alongside the suv grabbing at the door handles. At one point another person came to give Molina a hand, and together they tried to use sticks to stop the still-moving car which was beginning to move back towards the highway. They tried to push it into the guardrails to at least slow it down and prevent it from colliding with another car. The video doesn’t include the eventual end of the pursuit when her car hit a divider and stopped.
Adolfo Molina, 25, makes a living as an Uber driver. He said he saw a driver in trouble and felt the call to help and got out of the vehicle, doing everything in his power to stop the runaway car. Molina’s wife, Maytee Pena, said “I was surprised at first but at the end of the day I wasn’t, because he’s a helpful person. Something in his mind just said ‘go help’ so he got out of the car and did what he needed to do, it was like a sign of God. God sent him to do that mission.”
State police later revealed the driver was a 57-year-old woman from New Hampshire who had indeed lost consciousness for unknown reasons. She was transferred to a nearby hospital, and Molina, who was honored for his heroism at the Dominican consulate in Boston, hopes to be able to meet her someday. Molina will also be honored by the mayor of Lawrence for his heroic deed.
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