Kat Wildfire

A man plunged 120 feet off a cliff at Glacier National Park, landing in the rushing water below. But now he was floating face down in the rushing water, and nobody even knew he had fallen. Ken Nurse was visiting the Montana park with his wife and friends when he stepped closer to a waterfall overlook to take a picture. Suddenly, the ground beneath him gave way, sending him tumbling down the cliff into the creek below. His wife, Renae, had already returned to their car. She had no idea what had happened. Downstream, a father named Josh Seppelt was enjoying the park with his daughter when they heard something hit the water. Then his daughter spotted something moving downstream. She looked closer and realized it was a person. Josh immediately rushed into the water, grabbed Ken by the foot, and pulled him into the shallows. But when Josh reached him, he made a horrifying discovery. Ken wasn't breathing. Without hesitation, Josh began CPR, desperately trying to save a complete stranger as a nearby park ranger called for help. After Josh performed CPR, Ken regained a pulse. A helicopter rescue team arrived and lifted him from the rocky creek. Ken suffered broken ribs, a severely fractured elbow, and serious lung injuries. He spent two days on a ventilator, but he survived. His wife later said, "I can't imagine doing this life without him." Because a little girl spotted a stranger in the water, and her father refused to hesitate, Ken got to go home to his wife. Josh Seppelt and his daughter deserve recognition for what they did that day.

A 65-year-old man was pinned beneath a car, screaming for help for 90 minutes, but nobody heard him. With broken ribs, a fractured pelvis, and his strength fading, he began to believe he was going to die. Then he prayed for God to send someone, gathered enough strength for one final scream, and something extraordinary happened. It happened in Sumter, South Carolina. Allen Clemmons had been working beneath his Ford Mustang when it slipped off its supports and came crashing down on him. Unable to move and struggling to breathe, he spent the next hour and a half desperately calling for help. As his strength faded, Allen prayed for one more chance to be heard. That final cry reached a 9-year-old boy playing nearby. Malachi Coffey followed the sound and discovered Allen pinned beneath the vehicle. Realizing how serious the situation was, he stayed beside the injured man and listened carefully to his instructions. Allen guided Malachi to a car jack and told him where to position it. The little boy began pumping the handle, slowly raising the vehicle until enough pressure was lifted for Allen to breathe more easily. Malachi then ran to get additional help. Allen survived despite suffering serious injuries. He later called Malachi his guardian angel, believing God had answered his desperate prayer through a little boy who happened to be nearby. Malachi was honoured for his bravery, but what makes this rescue so remarkable is that a nine-year-old boy accomplished something that saved a man’s life when nobody else could hear his cries. Sometimes answered prayers arrive in the smallest, most unexpected ways. This young hero deserves to be celebrated.

The Nazi guards never heard the baby crying inside her toolbox. If they had, 2,500 children would have died. In 1942, a 32-year-old Polish social worker named Irena Sendler walked into the Warsaw Ghetto carrying a simple toolbox. She had a permit to check for typhus outbreaks. The guards waved her through. Hidden beneath the wrenches and rags was a six-month-old baby. She walked past armed soldiers and handed the child to a Polish family waiting outside the walls. The next morning she walked back in and did it again. For three years Irena smuggled approximately 2,500 Jewish children out of the Warsaw Ghetto. She hid infants in toolboxes, sedated children and smuggled them in coffins, concealed them in ambulances under stretchers, and used sewer pipes. Every child received a new Polish name. Irena recorded everything—real names, new names, locations—on tissue paper sealed in glass jars and buried in a friend’s garden. By October 1943 the Gestapo caught her. They tortured her, broke both her legs and both her feet, and beat her unconscious. She gave them nothing. After months they sentenced her to death. The night before her execution, the underground bribed a guard. He led her out and recorded her as “executed.” She went immediately back to work and continued until the war ended. When the war ended she dug up the jars and spent months trying to reunite children with families. Most parents had died in the camps. For decades almost no one knew about her. Then in 1999 four teenage girls in Kansas found a brief mention of a woman who had saved 2,500 children. They researched and wrote a play. At age 89 Irena Sendler became famous. She was honored by Pope John Paul II and nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. She died in 2008 at age 98. One estimate suggests those 2,500 rescued children produced approximately 6,000 descendants. She was a social worker with a permit and a toolbox. She walked into hell every day for three years and walked out carrying children. The Nazis broke her legs. They couldn’t break her will.