With all the bad news that envelops you whenever you sit down to keep up with current events, it's a welcome break to find inspiring stories like the following pair. They come with a common thread: the quick-thinking self-sacrifice of one sibling ended up saving the life of the other.First, from BC, a 16-year sister is saved from an icy death by the initiative of her younger brother:
A 16-year-old Vancouver girl was taken to Lions Gate Hospital in critical condition yesterday with a head injury and hypothermia after she plunged into Lynn Creek in North Vancouver.
The girl appears to have slipped on the ice and snow on a trail above the creek and slid about 11 metres [approx 36 feet] down the steep bank and into the icy creek, said Mike Cairns of the North Vancouver District Fire and Rescue Service.
Her older brother climbed down the rough terrain to the edge of the creek and pulled her from certain death, said Cairns.
"Her brother definitely saved her life at that point," said Cairns.
"He got pretty banged up doing it."
The brother was also taken to Lions Gate suffering from mild hypothermia.
I was just up there, and I think I hiked past the area where the accident took place; at one point there were footprints mysteriously leading right off a snowy cliff, and I can't imagine any other explanation for them, given the precipice they led towards. It certainly took a lot of guts to go after that girl, that was a very steep slope! This photo shows Lynn Creek a little north of where I'm guessing the incident happened, but the terrain is similar to that of the location described in the story.
Next, a story from our neighboring province of Alberta, showing that there's no age limit for heroic initiative, as an 8-year old boy puts his own body into danger in order to save his older sister from an attacking dog:
Drayden, 8, and his sister Sara Werner, 10, were sledding on a hill just half a block away from their home at 4:30 p.m. when they saw the dog, named Chinook, jump over a fence from a nearby house.
When Sara, an animal-lover, reached out her hand and beckoned Chinook towards her, the dog clamped onto the bottom of her coat and started dragging her away...
Drayden immediately jumped to her aid, launching snowballs at the dog and attacking it with his snowboard until it turned its attention toward the boy.
As Chinook attacked Drayden, biting him all over his body and tearing off his jacket, Drayden yelled at Sara to go home and seek help.
The children's uncle, Luke Werner, and the RCMP quickly dashed to the park and were able to rescue Drayden and corral the dog in an ice rink until Red Deer Animal Control arrived.
Drayden was rushed to hospital where he received seven stitches to his head and two to his arm.
2 comments:
Stories of Modernity there.
Islamic stories? Man killed mother, daughter, sister over "honor."
Modernity? Is self-sacrificing love for one's kin so modern or is it the norm of a divine and natural law that the "honour killers" flaunt in their hideous moral confusion that puts tribal kinship before the immediate? That's not to suggest that honour/shame obsessions are rare, but however common in some tribal parts do they not still give witness to a communal delusion that should be recognized by any who claim to live in the Abrahamic, and yet more primitive, light?
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