Heroic Bus Driver Leaps off Bus to Save Girl

SPRINGFIELD, Mo. - A city bus driver is lauded as a hero after he leapt off his bus and snatched a 3-year-old girl from traffic. The bus security cameras show the girl getting off the bus with a cheery "Bye!" and walking straight into traffic on a busy street. Chris Leslie, 38, is pictured streaking out the door after her.

One view from the bus camera shows a car making a rapid stop directly in front of Leslie and the girl last week.

"As I grabbed her, I looked as I pulled her back and luckily the car in the next lane, a pickup, had stopped," he said. "It was probably the first time in my life I was in the right place at the right time."

The girl's mother was busy in the bus with another child in a stroller and the toddler didn't heed a command to wait. Leslie said the mother and daughter were still hugging at the bus stop when he pulled away.

Leslie's wife, Cara, said she knew something had happened when her husband returned home from work that night. She said he immediately grabbed their 2-year-old daughter, Hannah, and gave her a long hug.

"He was really scared by it all," she said. "It's amazing how quick something like this can happen."

Members of the board of City Utilities, which runs the buses, discussed Leslie's heroics at their board meeting Thursday.

"It's pretty special," said general manager John Twitty. "He put his own life on the line."

Leslie, an eight-year CU veteran, earned the utility's Driver of the Year award last year. His boss, transit manager Carol Cruise, said the utility's rules won't allow him to win it two years in a row.

"But there's no reason he couldn't win it the year after that."

Source
[tags : unusual wierd bizzare]

Brazilian saves Grandson from Anaconda

SAO PAULO, Brazil - A 66-year-old Brazilian saved his grandson from the grip of a 16-foot-long anaconda by beating the snake with rocks and a knife for half an hour, police said Thursday.

"When I saw the snake wrapped around my grandson's neck I thought it was going to kill him," Joaquim Pereira told the Agencia Estado news service. "It was agonizing, I pulled it from one side, but it would come back on the other."

Pereira's 8-year-old grandson, Mateus, was attacked by the anaconda near a creek on his grandfather's ranch in the city of Cosmorama, about 250 miles northwest of Sao Paulo.

While the boy was playing with friends, the snake attacked and wrapped itself around him, police officer Hudson Augusto said. Anacondas are not poisonous, but kill their prey by coiling around them and squeezing until victims suffocate.

"It brought me to the ground and bit me," the boy told Globo TV, which showed footage of the dead snake. "Then it started crawling up my neck and began suffocating me."

Mateus' friends ran to get his grandfather, who reached the scene and battled with the snake until it released his grandson.

The boy was rushed to a hospital and needed 21 stitches on his chest where he was bitten.

Police said anacondas are not uncommon in the region, but attacks on people are rare.

Source

[tags : unusual wierd bizzare]

Sibu Cops Save Girl from Rapists

Police saved a 15-year-old girl from two youths who allegedly attempted to rape her in a four-wheel drive following a dramatic high speed chase here.

The chase started from Jalan Chew Siik Kiong and ended near Sungai Engkalat when suspects' vehicle plunged into the Igan River.

The suspects, aged 18 and 24, and the girl managed to swim to safety. Police subsequently apprehended the suspects one in a drain and the other in a nearby sago plantation.

Police, who had to fire a warning shot to get the 24-year-old suspect to surrender, seized the vehicle, which was reported stolen in Bintulu recently.

The drama unfolded when a patrol car was deployed to Jalan Chew Siik Kiong to investigate a report of a stolen vehicle.

Arriving there at about 4am, the policemen found two youths and a girl inside the car parked behind a building.

Suddenly, the driver sped off, and the patrol car gave chase.

The girl, from a longhouse at Km48 Jalan Oya, told police that she met one of the suspects two days ago in town and he invited her for a dinner at a restaurant on Tuesday.

Saying that her drinks might have been spiked, as she felt drowsy after having drinks during dinner, she claimed that the suspects attempted to rape her.

Source

[tags : unusual wierd bizzare]

'Subway Superman' Honored

NEW YORK - A man's daring rescue of a teen who fell on the subway tracks earned him the unique title "the hero of Harlem" on Thursday, plus $10,000 from Donald Trump and a trip to Disney World.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg bestowed the title upon Wesley Autrey as he presented him with the city's highest award for civic achievement, calling the 50-year-old construction worker "a great man — a man who makes us all proud to be New Yorkers."

Past recipients of the Bronze Medallion have included Gen. Douglas MacArthur, Martin Luther King Jr., Muhammad Ali and Willie Mays. The last honoree was Housing Authority employee Felix Vasquez, who caught a baby thrown from a burning building in 2005.

On Tuesday, Autrey saw Cameron Hollopeter, a 19-year-old film student, suffering a seizure while waiting for a train. After stumbling down the platform, Hollopeter, of Littleton, Mass., fell onto the tracks with a train on its way into the station.

Autrey, traveling with his two young daughters, said something needed to be done and he thought: "I'm the only one to do it."

He jumped down to the tracks, a few feet below platform level, and rolled with the young man into a drainage trough between the rails as the southbound No. 1 train came into the 137th Street/City College station.

Some train cars passed over Autrey and Hollopeter with only a couple of inches to spare, but neither man suffered any harm from the incident. Hollopeter, hospitalized for his medical condition, was in stable condition Thursday.

Metropolitan Transportation Authority Executive Director Elliot Sander called Autrey's action "a death-defying act of bravery. We truly have not seen anything like this. ... He was at the right place at the right time and did the right thing."

After the City Hall ceremony, a limousine whisked Autrey — who also received a year's worth of free subway rides — to a meeting with Trump, who presented him with $10,000.

He also has received $2,500 from the New York Film Academy to start a scholarship fund for his children, and tickets and a backstage tour to the Broadway musical "The Lion King."

Autrey, who did the morning news show circuit on Thursday and taped a David Letterman appearance later in the day, will be flown to Los Angeles for an appearance next week on Ellen DeGeneres' show.

As for his new celebrity, he concluded, "good things happen when you do good."

Source

[tags : unusual wierd bizzare]