Wednesday, July 22, 2009

Of angels and hope

I scan the headers of local and international news from my RSS news feed reader. I was trying to browse for some interesting news bits. Well, there is the eclipse. Ho-hum, move on, move on...After a while, it gets really depressing. Bombings, more bombings, floods, more swine flu deaths, a chopper crash, torture investigations, killings, more killings, terrorism, Michael Jackson (still?), Obamacare (what??), politics, and more politics. Then I come across this uplifting news item from CNN.

Strangers saved life of boy trapped in burning SUV
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(CNN) -- The off-duty firefighters who rushed into a burning SUV and cut a 4-year-old boy out of the seatbelt saved his life, the boy's doctor said during a press conference Tuesday in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

The depth of the boy's burns "indicates to me this was a very hot fire, and he was in close contact with it," pediatric surgeon David Gourlay said. "These firefighters were clearly heroic and saved D.J.'s life."

D.J. Harper is in serious but stable condition with second- and third-degree burns on his scalp, face, back and arms, Gourlay said.

But the little boy is expected to make a full recovery thanks to a group of strangers that came to his rescue. The onlookers helped a woman and girl from their fiery SUV before off-duty firefighters cut a seatbelt to free D.J. in a harrowing rescue attempt a neighbor captured on video...
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At a news conference Tuesday at Children's Hospital of Wisconsin, D.J.'s father, James Harper, struggled to contain his emotion as he thanked those who helped save his son.

"I'm sorry, I'm trying to hold it together, but it's my little boy," he said. "I just want to thank everybody, the citizens of Milwaukee, for helping us."

"There are angels all around us."
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You bet.

And may I add: there is hope in this world. Not the kind of hope that Obama says, but hope that is real.

2 comments:

sunnyday said...

This article made me tearful. I can only imagine what the dad felt! And those strangers helping out -- there really is hope in the world. REAL hope.

Thanks so much for posting it, WillyJ! This also made me look for other good news :-)

I'm not sure if happynews.com has a feed; if it does, maybe you can add it to your list.

Have a fine, fruitful day.

WillyJ said...

sunnyday,
Yeah. The SUV could have exploded anytime the rescue was being done. As a father of a 4 year-old myself, I really connected with this story.

Thanks for the tip. Have a good one too.