1 . “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.”

2 . It was late, about 10:15 p.m., when Janice Esposito arrived at the Bellport train station; she jumped into her Honda Odyssey and began the 20-minute drive home to her husband and seven-year-old son. She’d just returned from visiting her mother and had traveled the route many times before. She practically _______ on autopilot: a left onto Station Road, then a left on Montauk Highway, and then—wham! Out of nowhere a car T-boned Esposito’s minivan, _______ her to move backward some 100 feet onto the railroad tracks. She _______ in the minivan, bruised (撞伤) but mostly just knocked out by the _________ and the airbags.

As it happened, Pete DiPinto was getting ready for _______. He’d just closed his book   and was getting under the covers when he heard the sound of metal on metal and breaking glass coming from not far outside his bedroom window. A volunteer_______and retired teacher, DiPinto, 64, never _______to think. He grabbed a flashlight and, still dressed in his pajamas   (睡衣), ran out the door. “Any firefighter would have done what I did,” he told Newsday. “We’re always on_______.”

The first car he came upon, 2,000 feet from his front yard, was the one that had _______Esposito. Once DiPinto concluded the driver was OK, he looked around and __________Esposito’s minivan positioned on the railroad tracks. And then he heard a terrible sound: the bells signaling an oncoming __________.

“The gates were starting to come down,” he told Newsday. “I see the headlight of the train.” DiPinto ran quickly to Esposito’s minivan and knocked on the driver’s side window. She __________ looked at him, her eyes unfocused. “I don’t know where I am,” she said. She     seemed unhurt. “Honey, you’re on the railroad __________,” DiPinto shouted. “We have to get   you off right now!” He pulled hard on the __________, but the door was crashed in and __________. The   heavy diesel train, traveling at 65 miles per hour, was moving fast toward them. DiPinto ran to the passenger side and threw open the __________. “Please, don’t let her be __________,” he thought.     He pushed aside the deflating (瘪了的) airbags, grabbed Esposito’s arms, and__________her toward him across the passenger seat until he could help her out and quickly get her to ____________ behind a signal box a few feet away. Within six seconds, he estimated, the train crashed into the minivan. “It was like a Hollywood movie,” DiPinto told reporters the next day.

But this one had a twist. “Last night,” South Country Ambulance chief Greg Miglino told CBS New York, “the__________ arrived in pajamas, not in a fire truck.”

5 . I know what courage looks like. I saw it on a flight I took six years ago, and only now can I speak of it without tears filling eyes at the memory.

Our flight left the Orlando Airport one Friday morning. But immediately upon take-off, it was clear that something was wrong. The aircraft was bumping(颠簸) up and down. All the experienced travellers, including me, looked around with knowing smiles. If you fly much, you see these things and learn to act calmly about them. However, we did not remain calm for long.

Minutes after we were in the air, our plane began falling quickly. The pilot soon made a serious announcement. “We are having some difficulties,” he said. “Our indicators show that the control system has failed. We will be returning to the Orlando Airport. The flight attendants will prepare you for a bumpy landing. Also, if you look out of the windows, you will see that we are dumping fuel from the airplane. We want to have as little on board as possible in the event of a rough touchdown.” In other words, we were about to crash. Many travellers looked visibly frightened now. No one faces death without fear, I thought.

Then a couple of rows to my left, I heard a still calm voice, a woman’s voice, speaking in an absolutely normal conversational tone. I had to find the source of this voice. All around, people cried. Many screamed. Finally, I saw her. In this chaos, a mother was talking to her child. The woman, in her mid-30s, was staring full into the face of her daughter, who looked to be four years old. The child listened closely, sensing the importance of her mother’s words. The mother’s gaze held the child so fixed that she seemed untouched by the sounds of grief and fear around her.

Finally, I leaned over and by some miracle could hear this soft sure voice with the tone of comfort. Over and over again, the mother said, “I love you so much. Remember, no matter what happens, I love you always.” Fortunately, our landing gear held at last and our touchdown was not a tragedy.

However, the voice I heard that day never faded. That mom showed me what a real hero looks like.

Everyone needs to know how to prevent a fire. It is also important to know what to do when it     1    （break）out .

Every year, over 11, 000 people     2    （kill）or injured in house fires. These fires could have been avoided. Smokers who are     3    （care）cause about 200 deaths and over 6,000 fires. More than half of those     4     die in fires are poisoned or harmed by smoke.

If fire happens, do not attempt to fight the fire unless it is small. Try putting out a small fire with water. If     5     fire has spread or if the flames are more than 20 inches high, shut the door on it. Warn everyone else in the building and tell them to get out. You should leave and dial 119for the fire department.

Before     6    （go）into a room, check the door. If the handle or the door is hot, do not open it! Instead, put clothing or a wet towel at the bottom of it to keep smoke out. If the door is not hot, open it     7    （slow）. If there’s a rush of smoke or heat, close it again and shout to warn     8    （other）in side.

Now open the window and shout “Fire!”. See whether you can drop safely to the ground. Use this     9     your escape course if you can. If you are not on ground level, break your fall by pushing a mat out first. Lower yourself at arm’s     10    （long）before dropping. Once outside, stay outside and make sure the fire department is called.

9 . Many people panic when things go wrong, but others know how to take charge. For a(n) _________group of students in Topsham, Maine, brothers Connor and Seamus Collins fall into the latter _________. Sixteen-year-old Connor and 12-year-old Seamus were _________ the bus to school one morning when suddenly Connor saw their bus driver Arthur McDougall _________ a medical emergency and hit the floor heavily. The bus was _________ the ditch (沟渠) on the right. Connor who learnt how to drive _________ immediately what he had to do.

“I _________ and pressed on the brake and told my little brother to call 911,” he said, recalling the _________ at the moment. “I need to stop this bus before it goes into the ditch.”

The teenager held the steering wheel (方向盘) while jamming his _________ onto the brake.

Meanwhile, Seamus made sure someone called instead of him and began to __________ the other students to get off the bus __________. All the while, he kept his cool and even paused to __________ a crying student and comfort him.

While Seamus __________ the other kids, Connor and another student had just __________ giving Arthur CPR when the police arrived on the __________. Using a defibrillator (除颤器), they __________to get the victim’s heart going again. Then he was sent to the hospital at once.

The brothers are being praised for their __________. Police say they kept the __________ under control and prevented anyone else getting hurt. “If not for them, we would've maybe __________ a little later,” said Gomez. “Thank them for __________ and being heroes.”