Honest taxi driver reaps rewards

The donations started after a website was set up in his honour calling for gestures of gratitude for what is seen as an extraordinary act of honesty.

So far the equivalent of $14,580 has been donated, according to the site.

Santiago Gori, a taxi driver in the coastal city of La Plata, found the money after driving an elderly couple.

They only went a short distance but when he dropped them off, they left a bag in the back of his taxi.

A few days later he managed to locate his passengers again and he returned the bag.

For Argentines used to corruption at all levels of society, this was an extraordinary story.

Two young advertising agency employees decided to set up a website to thank Mr Gori further for his exemplary behaviour.

Now thousands of people have accessed the site and have left hundreds of rewards and messages for Mr Gori.

One visitor offered to produce in his studio a song chosen by Mr Gori to kick-start a potential artistic career.

Another offered a snow-boarding lesson in Argentina’s ski resort of Bariloche, while an Argentine abroad promised to bring back a second-hand GPS satellite receiver for his taxi on his return.

“Thank you”, say many of the messages and one said it all: “I wish more people were like you.”

For his part, Mr Gori seems a bit bemused.

He said he only did what had to be done – and that he does not quite know what to do with all the things he has been offered.

Read more: Honest taxi driver reaps rewards

Alert cop halts runaway SUV, saves marathon runners

Keith Lewis didn’t have time to think.

The Land Rover headed toward the Mariemont police officer and a pack of Flying Pig marathon runners Sunday morning.

He turned, jumped on the hood, swung his body toward the passenger side and hopped inside.

At the same time, a bystander reached through the driver’s side window and pulled the emergency brake. Lewis shifted the car, driven by a woman having a seizure, into park.

“It was instincts, just pure instincts,” said Lewis, who has been with the Mariemont department four years. “I didn’t have time to think about what was happening. My main thing was trying to stop the car before it went right through the crowd. It was just the adrenaline and trying to put in practice everything I’ve learned.”

Lewis, 37, had worked overnight.

He was less than three hours into an extra traffic detail when the sports utility vehicle came toward him at 20 miles per hour – “almost like she didn’t see me standing there.”

The SUV stopped about 100 feet from the East Street and Miami Road intersection where Lewis was standing.

The driver, who has not been identified, was taken to a local hospital.

It is unclear what happened in the minutes before the incident.

The woman started to regain consciousness and become more alert soon after medics arrived. She didn’t remember the accident – or even getting into her car, according to police.

No one was injured.

That’s a miracle, Mariemont Police Chief Richard Hines said, considering all of the commotion happened just as a large group of runners passed through the area.

“(Lewis) happened to be in the right place at the right time and did everything right,” Hines said. “It could have been a very different outcome. But it’s just one of those things where we have a happy ending, and I’m glad.”

 

Read more: Alert cop halts runaway SUV

Photo: Flickr user Green Marrow

Man registers car right before officer can finish writing ticket

In less time than it took a North Brunswick patrolman to write a ticket for an unregistered vehicle, the driver got his car registered online Thursday. 

When officer Jason Zier pulled over a 1992 Mazda 626 on Thursday afternoon, the vehicle’s registration had expired. By the time he’d finished writing up Sean Leach for the infraction, the car was legal again. 

That’s because the 36-year-old Jersey City man had a cell phone, a friend with a computer who he could reach and the foresight to use the New Jersey Motor Vehicle Commission’s online registration service. 

Leach’s ingenuity did not save him from getting a ticket, but it did keep him from having his car towed _ and getting socked with the towing bill. 

Zier pulled Leach over on Route 130 after noticing the sticker on his license plate was expired. When Leach told Zier he had not gotten around to renewing his registration, the officer mentioned that drivers can register online, North Brunswick Police Department spokesman Capt. Donald Conry said. 

Leach took the renewal form the commission had sent him from his visor, which contained the access code he needed to renew. While Zier issued the summons and ordered the tow, Leach called a friend who took his credit card number and other information and renewed the registration for him, Conry said. 

When Zier came back with the ticket, Leach told him the car was now registered. The computer inside Zier’s patrol car confirmed it. 

“It’s immediate,” Conry said. 

Zier canceled the tow truck _ no longer needed since it was to tow an unregistered car off the road.

Source:  Genius and Great!

Heroic PE teacher pushes mother and children from path of car

A physical-education teacher at A.K. Suter Elementary School in Pensacola is being called a hero after he was struck by a car this morning near the school while he protected children.

Patrick Judd was transported to Baptist Hospital. Colleen Kirsch, spokeswoman for the hospital, said Judd was in good condition this morning.

Deputy Superintendent Norm Ross said witnesses saw Judd push a mother and her two children out of the path of an oncoming car.

By doing so, Judd took the brunt of the hit and suffered a leg injury.

District officials applauded Judd’s selfless actions Friday.

Laura Richards, 37, dropped off 6-year-old Abigail for school this morning and was crossing the street while talking with Judd.

She had 2-year old Laura Sophia sitting on her hip and 4-year-old Isabella holding her hand as she walked.

“He jumped back to take the full impact,” Richards said of Judd. “I don’t really know what happened. It happened so quickly but when it was all said and done we were safe on the side of the road and my daughters’ flip flops were still on the pavement.”

Richards said she know Judd because she sees him every morning and afternoon doing crossing guard duty. The last day of school before Christmas break, Richards said, Judd wears a Santa Claus costume while guiding traffic.

“We’re so grateful,” she said. “We pray for him and that he’ll be alright. If if he hadn’t been there it would have been us. My two little girls are so tiny.”

“The incident this morning was certainly an act of heroism,” Ross said. “It doesn’t surprise me at all. He’s been a longtime employee and has demonstrated throughout his career his dedication to students and the school.”

Superintendent Malcolm Thomas said he was proud of Judd’s service to the schools.

“This is just another example of the dedication of our employees in this district,” Thomas said.

In 1999 Judd won the Elementary School Physical Education Teacher of the Year Award from the county.

Read more and see the family he saved: ‘An act of heroism’

Men catch toddler in 30-foot fall [Video]

Amazing story of being at the right place at the right time.

Two men are being hailed as heroes by police for catching a toddler who fell 30 feet from a third-story window.

Robert Lemire of Methuen says that he was talking on his cell phone on Sunday evening outside a pizza shop when he saw the toddler dangling from a third-story window in a home across the street.
 
“I heard some commotion across the street.  I saw some toys go out the window,” he said.

“A couple of minutes later, I heard a baby cry and I thought right away – I looked across and there was a baby hanging from the window sill.”

The toddler was being held by two other children.

The 45-year-old father of two bolted across a busy street and was nearly hit by a car.

“I didn’t even look, I just ran across the street,” Lemire said.
 
He met 23-year-old Alex Day, who had been inside the home at a Bible study meeting on the first floor.

Together, they caught 18-month-old Caliah Clark before she hit the ground.

“The baby basically fell about two seconds after we got there,” Day said.

“He got the top half, I pretty much got the bottom half,” said Lemire.

The child was taken to a hospital and is OK.

The toddler’s father was taking care of a newborn at the time.

Read more and watch this story: Men Catch Toddler In 30-Foot Fall In Lawrence

KFC wants to fill potholes in your city

KFC wants to fill potholes in your city. 
 
But there is a catch: instead of streets full of tire chewing craters, your streets will be filled with KFC logos, at least temporarily.
 
To promote its freshly prepared fried chicken, KFC is sponsoring “freshly filled up” potholes in up to five major cities in the United States.
 
KFC has sent offers to mayors nationwide asking them to describe the bad shape their city’s streets are in. Four of those cities will be chosen and KFC will pay for materials and labor to have potholes filled in those cities. KFC already began filling potholes this week in its hometown of Louisville, Kentucky.
 
A spokesman for KFC would not say how much it will cost to fill the potholes. But the offer comes as cash-strapped cities are looking for ways to save costs.
 
“Budgets are tight for cities across the country, and finding funding for needed road repairs is a continuing challenge,”  Louisville Mayor Jerry Abramson said in a news release.
 
Some of the filled potholes will also be stenciled with a logo that says they were “re-freshed by KFC.” The spokesman said the stenciling will be done with nonpermanent spray chalk, so they will eventually go away.

Read more: Pothole filling that’s finger-lickin’ good

Teen finds missing baby in stolen car [Video]

 

A baby is safe after a car with the child inside was stolen on Detroit’s northwest side Wednesday morning.

“When I seen my little boy, I was just so happy,” said the 5-month-old’s mother, Bianca Bell.

Bell’s son, Joshua, was in the backseat of a vehicle at a gas station on Fenkell and Strathmoor roads when his father went into the gas station for a moment. Police said that’s when a thief jumped in the running vehicle and drove away with the child.

Students who were waiting for a bus nearby saw the car pull in and park and the driver walk away.

Bianca Bell, crying tears of joy, said she thought for a moment that she was never going to see her son again.

Read more: Baby Inside Of Stolen Car Found Safe

Watch that story: Baby Boy Found Safe in Stolen Car

Grandmother runs down purse snatcher with her car [Video]

Here is one from a reader. These stories are popular with readers… and I love them too. Another would-be victim comes out on top! This lady is a firecracker!

A 65-year-old Texas grandmother says she chased down a man who had just snatched her purse, hit him with her car and held him until police arrived.

“I was madder than hell is what I was,” Val Renfro said. “I didn’t think about anything else except, ‘He’s not going to get away with this.’”

Renfro had just finished shopping at Office Depot in East Fort Worth on Sunday afternoon and was getting in her car when Ricky Lee Sample stole her purse.

“The next thing I know, somebody just blindsided me,” Renfro said. She grabbed her cell phone, which she carries in her bra, and called 911 as he fled. “Someone just grabbed my purse out of the car,” she told the operator. “I’m going to chase him down.”

Renfro said she got in her car and screeched out of the parking lot. She spotted the man in front of a nearby movie theater. Her confrontation with the man was recorded in her 911 call.

“Where’s my purse?” she yelled. “You give it to me now. I got the police on the phone right now. You give me my purse.”

Sample tried to walk away.

“And I thought, ‘I’m going to lose this man, and the police aren’t here,’” Renfro said. “So he got right in front of my right fender, and I just pushed on the gas.”

She said he flipped up in the air. “I hit him,” she told the 911 operator. Sample kept running, she said. Like a scene out of a movie, customers leaving the theater joined in the chase. “Now there’s others chasing him,” Renfro told the 911 operator.

Later, when she saw the man again outside the police station on his way to jail, he apologized, Renfro said.

“Apology accepted,” she replied. “God bless you.”

Read more and watch that story: Grandmother runs down purse snatcher with her car

Robbery victim steals burglars’ car [Video]

When most people see a crime in progress, they grab a phone, call 911 and then get out of the way.

But when Patrick Rosario discovered burglars in his own home, he decided to take things a step further: he drove off in their van.

“I wasn’t really worried until I heard running,” he said.

With his heart pounding, Rosario ran up the basement steps and peeked under the door. Disbelief then sunk in.

“‘I’m getting robbed’ — that’s literally going through my head,” he said.

Rosario saw burglars ransacking the house, dragging his flat-screen TV, electronics and his wife’s jewelry box to the front door.

Rosario quietly ran out the back door. Then he spotted the crooks’ getaway van. It was sitting empty with the engine still running.

That’s when he decided to make a move.

Rosario jumped in the crooks’ van and drove off. Then he called 911.

Operator: 911, what are you reporting?

Rosario: Somebody’s broken into my house.

Operator: I’m sorry?

Rosario: Somebody’s broken into my house!…I just drove their car away. They’ve got nothing.

This is another great story of the victim getting the upper hand. You’ve got to watch this story and listen to his 911 call.

Raed more and watch that story: Man gives crooks taste of their own medicine