3 . The sound that woke Damian Languell at 8:15 am was so loud that he assumed it came from inside his house. As he got up to investigate, he heard another sound, this one coming most definitely from outside. Looking out of his bedroom window, he spied a tree engulfed(淹没) in smoke about 500 yards away. A car was wrapped around the tree’s base, its engine on fire.

Grabbing buckets of water, Languell and his girlfriend ran to the crash site. The wreck looked worse up close. The car, a 1998 Buick, was split nearly in two, and the tree was where the driver’s seat ought to have been, as if planted there. No one should have survived this crash, and yet there was 16-year-old Quintin Thompson, his terrified face pressed against the driver’s side window, in visible pain. Languell tried putting out the fire with his buckets of water with no success. When the flames got into the front seats, he realized he had to get the boy out of there.

In an act that a police report described as showing “complete disregard for his own safety”, Languell opened the Buick’s back door and crawled in. Thompson was struggling to get free, Languell says. “That’s when I noticed how bad his legs were.” Using a pocketknife he’d had the foresight to bring with him, he sawed through Thompson’s seat belt.

Now that Thompson was free, Languell pulled him out a back window of the vehicle, then dragged the teen to safety before the entire car was engulfed in flames.

Although Thompson suffered multiple fractures(骨折) to his legs, spine, and face, a social media post described him as “looking great, smiling, and joking.” Languell thinks about that day often. “My heart goes out to Thompson. When you are that close to that level of hurt, you feel it so directly. ”

4 . When she was just 17 years old, Liz crashed into the back of a truck that was waiting to turn in a left-turn lane(车道). The crash is a life-changing one for her. Because of the crash, she’s blind in one eye, loses her sense of smell, loses some of her hearing, loses the ability to create tears, and she cannot fall asleep naturally.

“Initially, I thought I would not be defeated but clearly I was completely wrong. Apart from the medical problems, the hardest part about my life after the car accident was the fact that I was alone,” Liz said. “Everyone was away at college, but I wasn’t. I couldn’t drive or go to college. My friends who used to hang around with me were there for me at first, but after a while they stopped coming by.”

“I viewed her Facebook page, and she said on there: Can anybody please hang out with me today？I don’t have any friends, recalled Liz's mother, Betty.

In time, Liz and her mother teamed up with the US Department of Transportation’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to make a video. They wanted to get the point across that texting and driving can have life-transforming consequences.

In the video Liz appealed to drivers not to text when driving. She admitted she was checking and sending messages via her phone when she crashed her car into the back of the truck.

“Don’t text your loved ones when you know they’re driving,” said Liz’s mother. “It can change their lives forever.”

“If you get a text, don’t look at it,” Liz said. “It’s not worth it.”

5 . One Sunday evening,it was quite dark when old Stanley went for his walk.He was walking along the sidewalk.Suddenly,he saw a white car coming around the corner at high speed.It was going too fast and crashed into a red car in the street where he was walking.He rushed up to the cars to see if anyone was hurt and needed help.

The two drivers were arguing.

“You came around the corner too fast,” one man said.

“No!” said the driver of the white car,“That’s not true!Your car was parked in a wrong place.”

Stanley listened to their argument and then said the white car driver was wrong and he drove too fast.The driver of red car asked Stanley to prove he was right in court.Stanley gave the driver his name and telephone number.

Next Thursday morning,Stanley was asked to go to the court.The lawyer of the driver of the white car asked him a lot of questions about what he had seen.Then he asked Stanley how old he was.

“I’m eighty-two,” answered Stanley.

“Do you usually wear glasses?” asked the lawyer.

“Yes,I do,” answered Stanley.

“Were you wearing them on the night of the accident?” the lawyer asked.

“No,” replied Stanley.

Then the lawyer said,“Why should the court believe you?You are eighty-two years old,you were not wearing your glasses,and it was dark.How far can you see in the dark?”

Stanley thought about it for a minute.“Well,” he said,“when it’s dark,I can see the moon.How far is that?”

6 . Oil is essential for modern life. About 64 percent of the world’s oil is located in the Middle East, but the heaviest consumers of oil are Europe, America, and Japan. The problem lies in getting the oil from the countries that produce it to the countries that consume it. This is mainly done using oil tankers. Usually the oil is shipped safely and with no problems, but occasionally there is a disaster.

Every year millions of tons of oil are spilled into the ocean. Although this is only a small percentage of the total amount shipped around the world each year, this spilled oil can have terrible effects on ocean life, including the coastlines where the oil washes up onto shore.

One of the worst oil spills in history occurred along the Alaskan coastline in 1989, when the Exxon Valdez tanker got stuck off the coast of Alaska, spilling 42 million liters of oil. Although it wasn’t the largest oil spill, the disaster was terrible because it occurred in such a sensitive natural area. In this spill, the tanker’s captain, who was tired from overwork and drinking alcohol, had gone to take a rest. He gave control of the ship to another sailor, who was unfamiliar with the route. The ship ran onto Bligh Reef. Damaged by the reef, the ship leaked oil out into the ocean. More than 1,600 kilometers of coastline were affected by the oil spill. Many birds and otters died as a result of the oil covering their skin, and many other sea creatures and the animals that fed on them were also severely affected.