National Good Samaritan Day: 6 of our most inspiring stories that highlight amazing humans
Today is National Good Samaritan Day. It's a day to celebrate kindness, encouragement, and the acts that put smiles on people’s faces.
In honor of the day, we’ve compiled a list of our most recent inspiring moments involving Good Samaritans, ranging from rescuing incapacitated drivers to restaurant employees saving lives.
Read the amazing stories below.
The woman who saved a Dallas man from a burning vehicle
Tammi Arrington is a woman who rescued a Dallas, Texas man from a burning vehicle.
The man she saved, Dennis Brown, was paralyzed from the waist down when a gunman shot him, FOX 4 reported.
Brown was in a rental car when he got into an accident and the vehicle caught on fire. Unable to get out of the car himself, a woman came to his rescue. She initially tried to assemble his wheelchair but then pivoted to make sure Brown got out of the car unharmed.
The woman, who WLBT later identified as Arrington, pulled him from the burning vehicle.
Read more of Brown’s recollection of the heroic act by clicking the link below.
'She was his angel': Unknown woman pulls paralyzed Texas man from burning car after wreck
Meet the delivery driver who doubled as a hype man for a Chicago teen
Eligha Bryant, an Amazon Delivery Service Partner driver, was making a stop at a Chicago home when he offered some help.
The family that lives at the home gathered around teenager Luke Breier, who was having some difficulties securing his tie.
Bryant, who grew up in the church and was used to looking dapper, came to his rescue and helped him tie it.
“He was clean,” Bryant told USA TODAY shortly after a video of the encounter went viral. “He reminded me of myself when I was coming up. That’s how I used to dress.”
'You're killing the game': Amazon delivery driver helps Chicago teen with tie before homecoming
Teen boy saves elderly neighbor after four-wheeler accident
Blockton, Iowa resident Pat Kemery, who is 81 years old, lives alone since her husband passed away. Her 15-year-old neighbor ended up saving her life when she fell off her four-wheeler in June and got trapped under the vehicle.
Kemery accidentally hit the vehicle’s throttle with her hand, throwing her off and onto her stomach, trapped under the vehicle.
“Nobody’s going to find me here,” she thought, until Weston Drake came along.
He used skills he learned during Stop the Bleed training to save her, he said. During training, he learned how to treat a stab wound, a bullet wound and bad scratches.
Learn more about Stop the Bleed and the 15-year-old’s good deed below.
'I could have died there': Teen saves elderly neighbor using 'Stop The Bleed' training
Wendy’s employee serves up more than burgers during her shift
Aspiring nurse, Alexandria Cowherd, was working at Wendy’s in Lexington, Kentucky when she sprang into action.
Back in November, she went to work and set up at the front register. She was winding down after a sea of customers swept through the fast-food joint when her teammate asked her to follow him outside.
He took her to a man on the ground who was turning purple. He had overdosed and the woman he was with had no luck waking him up. They also had no Narcan on site.
Cowherd immediately saw what was wrong though.
“She wasn’t doing her compressions for long enough,” Cowherd told USA TODAY shortly after it happened. “She'd do it a few times and then she'd try to do mouth-to-mouth. After a few minutes of that, I was just like ‘Here, I'll do it.’”
The man was eventually taken away in an ambulance but an officer told her she did a good job jumping in to help with her compressions and CPR.
“I just did what I felt was the right thing to do,” she said. “And I feel like everybody should know how to do CPR because you never know when it will be necessary.”
Saving lives on the job: Employee at Wendy's in Kentucky saves customer's life, credits CPR for life-saving action
Stabbing victim credits stranger with saving her life
Michael Moore is a man who did not hesitate to help a woman who was stabbed at a Camp Springs, Maryland restaurant.
Moore lives in Washington D.C. but was in Camp Springs to visit a friend and grab something to eat.
He pulled up to a shopping center and recalled seeing a man run by him. Assuming the man was rushing to catch a bus or something, he went into a nearby restaurant
“When I went into the store I saw a lady on the floor,” he told USA TODAY.
He thought something seemed off and asked if she was OK. That’s when the woman, Elda Robinson, told him someone had stabbed her.
He went into the restaurant to ask for supplies and proceeded to apply pressure to her wounds, actions that later proved to save the woman’s life.
She later called him a “godsend” and praised his efforts to save her life.
“I did what I had to do and I stopped that bleeding because she would’ve bled out,” Moore said. “Elda would’ve died.”
'I did what I had to do': Man rescues stranger after stabbing incident
Teens work together to save a mother and a child trapped
A group of teens, high school students from Utah, came to the rescue of a mother and her son, a 2-year-old child, who were trapped underneath a car. The car was hit in the school's parking lot by a driver who was blinded by sunlight.
While one of the children, a 3-year-old girl, was able to free herself, the 2-year-old and their mother reportedly remained trapped underneath.
About 20 students surrounded the car and lifted it an inch or two above the ground to allow the trapped individuals to break free.
Dramatic rescue: High school students lift car to rescue woman, 2-year-old child in Utah: Watch video
Contributing: Saman Shafiq
Saleen Martin is a reporter on USA TODAY's NOW team. She is from Norfolk, Virginia – the 757. Follow her on Twitter at @SaleenMartin or email her at sdmartin@usatoday.com.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: National Good Samaritan Day: Showcasing good deeds, acts of kindness
