#8 - Hailey Morinico
In the afternoon of May the 31st of 2021, a California teen noticed a bear climbing over
a brick wall at her Bradbury residence in the San Gabriel Valley foothills. As was captured by the
property’s security camera, the mother bear was walking along the top of the wall with her 2 cubs
when 17-year-old Hailey Morinico’s 4 dogs charged the wild animals and began barking at them.
The bear cubs ran away, but their mother lingered behind and attempted to pick up the dogs, who
continued their frantic barking. Speaking about the incident during subsequent media interviews,
Morinico revealed that, upon witnessing the bear trying to harm her pets, her “instincts kicked in”
and she charged towards the animal herself. She gave the bear a forceful push, sending it tumbling
over the other side of the brick wall. The teen then picked up her dogs and fled back into the
house. The bear reportedly poked its head up one more time before wandering back behind a tree
to join her cubs. A biologist with the California Department of Fish and Wildlife later indicated
that the bear had likely viewed Morinico’s dogs as a threat to her cubs, and was thus acting on her
motherly protective instinct when she attacked them. Morinico reportedly suffered a sprained
finger during her brief altercation with the bear, while her dogs were left completely unharmed.
#7 - Chris Allen
In February of 2020, a video surfaced online in which a man prevented a distracted woman from
being struck by a car while she was crossing the street in downtown Cincinnati, Ohio. The woman,
who was looking down at her phone and wearing headphones as she walked across the roadway,
was unknowingly entering directly into the path of oncoming traffic. A nearby pedestrian, later
identified as 25-year-old Chris Allen, noticed the woman’s predicament and sprinted towards her
as a car was approaching. He pulled her out of the street, effectively saving her from an imminent
collision with the vehicle. In a subsequent interview with Inside Edition, Allen advised
people to stay off their phones when walking about the city, stating, “Your safety is everything”.
#6 - Stephanie Lontz
In dramatic doorbell camera footage filmed at a home in Las Vegas, Nevada, 19-year-old
Lauren Ray was captured trying to protect her pet dog from a frenzied pit bull. The video,
which emerged in December of 2021 and promptly went viral online, showed Ray petting the pit bull
on her front lawn for a couple of seconds before her own dog, Max, stepped outside as well. The
other animal’s presence sent the pit bull into hysterics and Ray had to pick Max up to shield
him from its subsequent attack. The teen began screaming as she struggled to keep the raging
pit bull away from Max, which eventually caught the attention of an Amazon employee
who was passing through the neighborhood. The quick-thinking delivery driver, identified as
Stephanie Lontz, rushed to assist the imperiled young woman by standing between her and the
pit bull. Lontz yelled “bad dog” as she hopped from side to side to keep the pit bull at bay,
allowing Ray to bring Max back inside the house. A few days after the incident, Ray and her family
publicly thanked Lontz for her brave actions during a press conference for local media outlets.
The Amazon driver described how the teen’s cries for help had made her think of her own child,
and stated she would “hope someone would jump in and help her if she was in a similar situation”.
#5 - David Phung
In the late summer of 2016, parts of Louisiana were ravaged by “unprecedented” flooding caused by
prolonged rainfall, which ultimately resulted in 60 total deaths and the destruction of thousands
of homes and businesses. A harrowing video broadcast on the CBS-affiliate station WFAB showed
a woman and her dog trapped in a red soft-top convertible that was sinking on the flooded
streets of Baton Rouge. The woman reportedly began shouting “I’m drowning” as her vehicle dipped
beneath the surface of the floodwater. Her cries for help were heard by 3 men on a nearby boat,
who promptly came to her rescue. One of the men, later identified by the New York Daily News as
David Phung, immediately jumped into the water and pulled the woman out from the car’s sunroof
as the vehicle became completely submerged. After the woman was brought to the boat,
she indicated that her dog was still beneath the surface, at which point Phung swam back
down to find it. Moments later, the man emerged with the dog in his grasp and,
along with the animal’s owner, were able to get to safety unharmed, according to
subsequent reports. The Louisiana floods, which occurred during a 10-day period in August of 2016,
has been called the worst US natural disaster since Hurricane Sandy in 2012.
#4 - Haily Strong
In the early morning hours of July the 5th of 2022, Ohio woman Haily Strong was driving home
from an Independence Day celebration in Fairfield when she saw a building on fire about a mile away.
The 23-year-old woman and her roommate swiftly sprung into action and drove directly towards
the sight of the flames, which had engulfed the garage of a nearby residence. As was captured
by the house’s doorbell camera, Strong ran to the front door and started banging on it to alert the
homeowners of the perilous situation unfolding in their garage. She pounded on the front
door for about 2 minutes before the residents, identified as Brittany Downing and Josh Ellis,
finally answered. It later emerged that the couple had been in their bedroom watching the
popular Netflix series Stranger Things while their 9 children were asleep when they heard Strong at
the front door. Downing and Ellis gathered their family and quickly evacuated the home,
which, at that point, had begun to catch fire as well. In the incident’s aftermath,
Downing thanked Strong in a Facebook post, which was uploaded along with a screenshot that had
been taken from her doorbell camera. Strong later reunited with the family, all of whom were left
unharmed thanks to her quick-thinking. As of the latest updates on the matter,
investigators were still working to ascertain the original cause of the garage fire.
#3 - Richard Wilbanks
On a Sunday morning in late October of 2020, Florida man Richard Wilbanks was walking with
his dog, Gunner, by the pond near his home in Estero when he had an alarming encounter with an
alligator. According to subsequent reports on the matter, they were walking along the shoreline
when, suddenly, the massive reptile, which was estimated to have been about 4-feet long,
quickly emerged from the water and lunged itself towards the dog, a Cavalier King Charles spaniel.
Gunner, having been trapped within the alligator’s jaws, was then dragged into the water,
but his quick-thinking owner immediately jumped into action to save him. Wilbanks reportedly
leapt into the pond and pried his beloved pet from the gator’s grasp. Upon releasing Gunner,
however, Wilbanks himself became the target of the reptile’s attack as it latched its teeth onto
his hand. The man eventually managed to free himself, and he, along with his dog, stumbled
back to his nearby house, dripping blood. After stitching up his injured hands himself, Wilbanks
took Gunner to an animal hospital, where doctors discovered that he had water in his lungs, as
well as a puncture wound on his body. Subsequent X-rays indicated that the animal was free of any
serious internal injuries, and he was ultimately allowed to return home after only a few days.
#2 - The Heroic Texas Inmates
A group of inmates being held in custody in Parker County, Texas
broke out of their cell in order to render aid to a corrections officer who was experiencing
a medical emergency on June the 23rd of 2016. The incident, which was documented in security
camera footage later released to the public, began while the jail guard, identified as Gary Grimm,
was chatting with the inmates in their cell. In the middle of their conversation, Grimm slumped
over in his chair, unconscious. The inmates, who were being held in a minimum security holding room
in the basement of the Parker County District Courthouse, were initially unsure of what to do,
as there was no one else within earshot to help the incapacitated officer. However,
a few seconds later, the inmates were shown on the surveillance video forcing the cell door open,
at which point they discovered that the guard wasn’t breathing and had no discernable pulse.
They banged on the walls in an attempt to get the attention of others in the building,
and even tried using the officer’s radio to call for assistance. A sheriff’s deputy and another
corrections officer in the building eventually went to the basement to investigate the clamor,
whereupon they called for emergency medical personnel, who were ultimately able to stabilize
Grimm’s condition. Subsequent reports indicated that the latter, who’d suffered a heart attack
on the day he was rescued by the quick-thinking inmates, medically-retired from his position in
December of 2017 after more than 20 years of working security at Texas prisons and jails.
#1 - Savannah Jones
California teen Savannah Jones was babysitting her 4-year-old niece on February the 28th of
2017 when she heard someone knocking on the front door of her family’s Montclair residence.
She looked through the peephole and saw a man whom she didn’t know standing outside. The stranger
then tried turning the doorknob, prompting Jones to grab her little niece and lock themselves
in her mother’s bathroom. It was later detailed how the teen subsequently heard 3 loud bangs
outside the bathroom door, indicating the man had somehow entered the house. Although Jones
reportedly wanted to call the police, she chose instead to text her mother for fear
of the intruder hearing her voice. After receiving Jones’ frantic messages, her mother contacted both
the police and a next-door neighbor. The latter walked over to the front of the house and began
shouting Jones’ name, which successfully scared off the burglar. Moments later,
officers arrived at the home and discovered that the unidentified suspect had ransacked a
room just a few feet away from where Jones and her niece were hiding, dumping various items from the
closet and drawers onto the bed. The intruder ultimately fled without stealing anything,
and the police credited Jones’ quick-thinking with preventing anything worse from happening.
Thanks for watching! Would you want the ability to know something bad was about to happen
even if you weren’t able to stop it? Let us know in the comments section below!