1 . It was the day before Thanksgiving and Kaleb Benham was wandering around outside his home in Noring California. His 90-pound pit bull, Buddy, was playing around nearby, doing what dogs do: getting into trouble. And this time, Buddy was getting into a whole lot of trouble.

The unmistakable sound that no one wants to hear alone in the woods caught Benham’s attention. It was the deep, strange roar of a black bear. Benham wheeled around to see the beast, which Benham figured weighed around 350 pounds, some 100 feet away. In an instant, the bear fastened on to Buddy’s head and started dragging him away.

Benham, a thin, fit 24-year-old, took off after them. “Honestly,” he told CBS13, “the only thing I could think of was ‘save my baby’.” Sprinting, he lowered his shoulder and plowed into the bear. But it only tightened its grip on Buddy. Benham grabbed the bear by the throat. Nothing. He tried getting its mouth open, but the jaw was locked tight. Benham resorted to street fighting—punching the bear over and over around its snout and eye. It worked. The bear dropped the dog and ran off into the woods.

Buddy was in bad shape. His face was bloodied and ripped up. His ears were dangling. He had a bite mark clear through his lip and one that barely missed an eye.

“My first thought was that I was going to lose him,” Benham said. He scooped up Buddy, put him into his car, and sped off to a nearby veterinarian. Buddy’s surgery took nearly four hours. Benham watched the procedure through a window. “I just stood there,” he said, watching as Buddy’s ears were stapled back on and skin flaps were stitched, and tubes were inserted into his head to drain fluid.

This was the second time Benham had rescued Buddy, says CBS13. The first was from a shelter a few years ago. “If it was your kid, what would you do?” he asked. Nodding toward Buddy, he added, “That’s my kid.”

5 . Nearly two years ago, Lauren Kornacki, a recent college graduate, walked outside her family’s home in Virginia to ask her dad if she could borrow his car. As she rounded the corner from the front yard into the garage, Lauren, saw her father, Ale, lying unconscious, pinned on his back beneath his car. The car had fallen off the jack while he was changing the brake pads on the right rear tire.

Lauren yelled inside at her mother to call emergency services, and then ran to the car. “I thought, I’m going to lose my dad,” she says. Unsure of what to do, she stuck both hands under the wheel hub where Alec had removed the tire and pulled up with all her strength. To her surprise, she lifted the car. Then she held it up with one arm and, with the other, pulled her father out from under the car by his pants leg.

Alec wasn’t breathing, so Lauren, a lifeguard certified in CPR, began performing chest compressions. Within seconds, Alec took a breath and opened his eyes. “Stay with me,” Lauren whispered as they waited for the ambulance. “Just keep breathing.”

Doctors treated Alec for five fractured ribs, a fractured sternum, and fractured vertebrae, but he was able to return to his job as an IT professional two months later. Lauren, now a computer engineer, says she didn’t stop to think. “Everyone has a basic instinct to help the ones they love,” she say.

6 . Surfer Dudes to the Rescue!

About 50 feet from shore of the Northern California’s Trinidad State Beach, two brothers were fighting for their lives. They had been swept out to sea in a rip current (激流), their mouths barely able to stay above the water. Thick fog made it difficult for beachgoers to see the guys, but the screams were unmistakable. And every second counted. The brothers, ages 15 and 20, were wearing shorts and T-shirts, unsuitable for a November day, let alone the freezing water. Keven Harder, a supervising ranger (巡查员), told the North Coast Journal in nearby Eureka that swimming in such a temperature “takes the fight right out of you.”

Luckily, four surfers in wet suits were nearby. Narayan Weibel, Spenser Stratton, and Adrian York, all 16, along with Taj Ortiz-Beck, 15, were on their surfboards riding up and down the coast on five-foot waves when they heard the cries. They turned and saw two bobbing heads and four struggling arms. “We looked at each other and knew these guys were about to drown,” Weibel told the Washington Post.

Weibel, Stratton, and Ortiz-Beck paddled toward the distressed swimmers while York headed to shore to warn someone to call 911. He then dived back in to help his friends.

As the surfers drew close, the brothers were still fighting hard for their lives. “It was pretty stressful, but there wasn’t any time to think about it, and that helped me keep my cool,” Ortiz-Beck says.

Ortiz-Beck pulled up alongside the younger brother. Grabbing him under his arms, he raised him up onto his board. Stratton and Weibel, meanwhile, hurried to help the older brother. He was large, 250 to 300 pounds, and he was panicked.

“I told them, ‘Calm down—we got you!’” says Weibel. “They thought they were going to die.”

York arrived in time to help get the older brother atop the second board. The surfers then paddled several minutes through choppy water to the medical help waiting onshore. The brothers were scared but fine.

“When we get a call like this one, it’s usually too late by the time we get there,” says Dillon Cleavenger, a first responder. “I can’t say enough about what these boys did. They were willing and prepared to risk their lives.”

7 . One day, Lisa Holman told her family she would be out that night visiting her friend, only about half an hour drive from her house. So it was not alarming as the night grew on and she did not arrive home. As 11 pm passed, her family began to worry. They called her but did not get any answer. They then reached out to Lisa's friend, who said Lisa had left to drive home at 9 that night.

The family thought about calling the police that evening but the police typically don't define a person missing unless there is no contact for 24 hours. The next morning there was still no sign of Lisa. All the family could do was sit home and wait. Lisa's son decided to drive along Lisa's route and carefully look for her. He found Lisa's car had crashed into a tree. What's worse，there was no sign of Lisa at all.

The family called the police. The police began their search. But due to the heavy rain the search team was called back. The family was very disappointed but still hopeful and continued the search 700 feet from Lisa's car, they finally found Lisa under a rock.

After a few days in hospital, Lisa recovered. She explained that she passed out after her car slid off the road in the rain. After she came to herself, Lisa managed to climb out of the car. While walking to find help, Lisa was exhausted and unable to figure out the direction. So she couldn't walk on and climbed under a rock as it started raining again. Scared as she was, she turned to her faith in hopes of living to see her son again.

8 . After a long day at the office, Jane Hodgson was on her way home and looking forward to relaxing with a nice cup of tea. While driving, she noticed that there was a car pulled over at the side of the road and a crowd had started to gather around someone who was lying on the ground.

Jane, who had completed first aid at the work course with the British Red Cross, pulled over to see if she could do something and it turned out to be lucky for the victim.

Describing the scene she saw, Jane says, “A crowd of onlookers gathered at the scene. A couple of young men were cream-faced and looking lost. They were completely terrified. When I walked up, first-aid kit in hand, they said, ‘You’re a first aider — Oh thank goodness.’ They were so shocked that they hadn’t even thought to call an ambulance yet.”

A young girl called Jenny was lying there. It turned out that the teen had been hit by a car and gone over the handlebars of her bike, landing on her head and shoulder.

“I was worried because she had not been wearing a helmet when she got knocked down, and I thought that she should not be moved as I couldn’t be sure about a spinal (脊柱) injury, but after looking her over, in relief, I felt fairly confident that she had escaped relatively unharmed. Even so, as time passed and we continued to wait for an ambulance, the amount of pain the girl was in was increasing. To avoid the risk of her going into shock I kept her talking. We chatted about her boyfriend and anything I could think of to keep her mind off the pain. She squeezed (捏) my hand when the pain got too much and this helped,” describes Jane.

Thinking back, Jane says, “I never did find out what happened to the girl. Apart from the boyfriend I wasn’t thanked by anyone else, but that’s OK. For me, knowing that in a small way I helped that girl through what was a frightening experience is all the reward I need. It felt great to know I’d made a difference.”

9 . Mount Hood is the highest mountain in Oregon, a state in the western United States. At 3, 400 meters it is attractive to many people, some of whom, of course, run into trouble. Each year 25 to 50 people have accidents or get lost on Mount Hood and need rescue（营救）. Although most of these are understandable accidents, a few result from careless risk-taking.

In one recent case, three experienced climbers went hiking in the middle of a snowstorm in December. Most hikers climb Mount Hood in May or June when the weather conditions are good. But in December, the mountain is covered in snow and ice. Winds up to 135 kilometers per hour blow the snow around, making it difficult to see. Temperatures can drop below freezing. As one rescue worker put it, "What were they thinking? They were just asking for it. "

During a rescue a few years ago, a helicopter full of rescue workers crashed and the rescue workers were almost killed. Linda Carle, who lives in the Mount Hood area, asks, If someone made a muddled decision, why should rescue teams have to risk their lives to save them? Why do people take unnecessary risks and do things that aren't right if they know that they can get into trouble? "

Most of the Mount Hood rescue workers are either volunteers or part of the local police department There is no charge for these rescues. It is the taxpayers who pay the bill. Linda Carle suggests that people who take careless risks and need rescue should ay for the rescue. She fees it is only fir that costs for things like damaged helicopters and medical care for rescuers should be paid for by the people who take the risks. What would you do if you were the local police officer at Mount Hood?