3 . On a wild July night, the storm was getting worse and worse. Kate Shelley, who lived between Honey Creek and Des Moines River, was _________ looking out of the window, wondering _________ it would wash away the bridges over them, when suddenly came the loud _________ of breaking wood, then followed by a great splash (飞溅的水花). She realized the bridge over the creek was _________. At that time, the midnight train was almost due. If no one told the engineer to _________ the train, it would fall into the creek with a hundred or more _________. The situation was so urgent that Kate _________ to go to Moingon Railway Station to get help. Immediately she _________ out into the storm with her father’s railway lantern.

Moingon lay on the far side of Des Moines River. The only way to get there was to cross a long wooden railroad bridge. Even in the daytime, it was _________ to walk on it because there was no foot walk or railing (栏杆) except only rails and ties. The ties were __________ enough apart for the girl to fall through.

Kate stopped when she came to the __________. She had never seen the river rising so high that she was shaking. What’s worse, she broke her lantern while __________ her way, exposing herself to the __________. She had to climb on her hands and knees.

It seemed like a long time. At last she reached the other side.

She stopped just long enough to catch her breath. Then she ran __________ to the railway station. When she finally got there, she was out of breath, wet all over, her hat blown away, her hands and knees still bleeding and her eyes looking __________. She told the station man what had happened to the Honey Creek Bridge before her fainting. Finally, the passengers were saved.

The girl’s heroic deed was rewarded. For her courageous act, Kate enjoyed a right of getting on or off the train at her door when she wanted.

7 . “Mayday! We got Mayday!” Frank Pisano screamed over the micro-phone to the air control tower at John Wayne Airport last June. One of the two engines on his 1975 Cessna had failed, and he was now on a collision course with one of the busiest highways in America—Interstate 405, just south of Los Angeles—and there was no stopping it.

Driving south on the 405, near the airport’s runway, was John Meffert. A fire department captain, Meffert, 47, was heading home from his shift. Then a low-flying plane caught his eye. After he took a second glance, a thought crossed his mind: “This plane’s going to hit me,” Meffert told Fox 8.

He was right. The plane knocked into the center highway, popped up a few feet, and then hit the front of Meffert’s SUV. It finally stopped after hitting the divider on the southbound side. Meffert pulled over. He was unhurt, so he turned his attention to the plane. He ran toward the smoke billowing from it—and then he saw Frank’s wife, Janan Pisano, pop her head up on the passenger side.

By the time Meffert reached the aircraft, part of the fuselage (机身) was on fire and Janan, who was covered in blood, was on the wing trying to pull her husband from the wreck. Meffert, afraid the plane would explode, guided her to safety behind it. At this point, traffic had come to a stop, and two nurses jumped out of their cars to help lead Janan farther away as Meffert ran back for the pilot.

“I’m going to get you out,” Meffert said as he positioned himself under the pilot’s arms and carefully lifted him from the seat. He dragged the pilot off the wing and carried him to the side of the freeway to safety, where they watched flames swallow the plane.

Remarkably, Meffert’s car was the only one hit by the plane. Had Meffert been a second or two faster, Frank told the Orange County Register, the left propeller (螺旋桨) would have torn the top off his SUV and killed him.

“I play all the what-ifs—going slower, going faster. It could have been in a very different situation,” Meffert told Fox 8. “We just had a lot of angels.”

8 . Sandra was driving her white Mazda down the main road with her daughter and son in the back. Suddenly, a green van ________ from the side road. Sandra turned the steering wheel ________ to the right, causing the car to run off the road and down an embankment (路堤) after sliding about 50 feet. If the car hadn’t stopped, it would have soared into the air and ________ on the road 20 feet below. Fortunately, as the car raced toward the embankment, its undercarriage got ________ on the road edge. The car came to a stop but actually on the edge of disaster. The people inside were far from ________. A sudden ________ by anyone inside could send the car over.

Patrick ________ the scene from the truck — parts company where he worked. Whispering prayers, he ran to the car along with four others. They jumped onto the trunk of the Mazda to balance the weight as the ________ kids in the back seat watched. Meanwhile, Alex, the owner of a shop nearby, rushed to the swinging car with a ________ belt. He tied the Mazda to a heavy truck that had been driven over by one of the other ________. With the car ________, the group carefully opened the back door and got the children out. But their ________ shifted the weight of the car, causing it to incline forward. The men, still on the trunk, asked Sandra to step into the back to ________ the weight. She did so and ________ out the back door. Finally, all the men carefully got off the car. Everyone was safe.

“If the car had run another ________,” Patrick told the local media, “this would have been a different story.”