11. Rhoda Wagner
60-year-old Rhoda Wagner was taking care of three pit bulls as a favor to her roommate,
Carla Mae Snow. The three dogs had been living at their place for over a month when, on
July the 28th of 2021, a fight broke out between 2 of them. When Wagner came across
the fighting dogs she attempted to step in and break them up, but all she did was get caught
in the fight. When the authorities were finally called to the scene, they saw Wagner’s mauled,
dead body in the front yard, circled by the two pit bulls. Snow had to authorize the 2 dogs
involved to be euthanized but was adamant that her best friend, a pit bull advocate, wouldn’t
have supported the decision. The county’s animal response team was brought in to capture the dogs.
10. Sophie Rosser
On August the 26th of 2012, Sophie Rosser was returning home to her flat
in East London, when she called her dad to chat in the cab. It was past 1 in the morning
so he told her that he was heading to bed and that he’d phone her in the morning. Unbeknownst to him,
the conversation would become the last time he heard her voice. Just 20 minutes after hanging up,
Sophie arrived at the apartment complex she shared with her boyfriend, Oscar Silva, and a roommate,
to see it engulfed in flames and smoke. She frantically called her boyfriend, who was still
inside their 5th-floor apartment, before running inside to help him and anyone else still left.
After being notified of the fire, her boyfriend and their roommate had taken the fire exit
to the first floor before being met with a wall of smoke that forced them back upstairs. Resigned to
calling for help on their balcony, Silva watched as a fireman exited the building with Rosser
hanging over his shoulder, unmoving. She was rushed to the hospital where she died later
that day. Both Silva and their roommate were safely rescued by fire crews. A post-mortem
examination revealed Rosser died from severe burns to her airways from trying to force her
way through the thick smoke. She’d made it to the 4th floor before collapsing.
9. Roberto Conejo Fletes
Roberto Conejo Fletes was minding his own business, on the weekend of June the 6th of 2021,
when he noticed a concerning struggle between a man and a woman. But, as he attempted to intervene
and help the latter, he was fatally shot and left to die. The shooter was Shane Rayment who had come
to his ex-girlfriend’s house to allegedly try and kidnap her. He got away with her, but was
caught days later at a traffic stop. Fletes’ efforts hadn’t been in vain as Jenny Downes,
Rayment’s ex, was found in the car with him, battered and bruised, but still alive.
Rayment was arrested and charged with 6 felony counts including murder and kidnapping.
8. Arnulf Salazar
53-year-old Arnulf Salazar, from Surrey, Canada, was visiting a lake in the Fraser Valley,
on July the 17th of 2021, when his 10-year-old son drifted off into the deeper water. Autistic
and non-verbal, Zac wasn’t aware that the lake had a steep underwater drop-off. Immediately,
as Zac started to struggle in the deep water, his father went after him to help. Another onlooker
soon swam out to offer assistance, after seeing and hearing commotion in the water.
The onlooker got a good stronghold on Zac and dragged him to shore, occasionally looking
back to see Salazar who seemed like he was managing. However, as he made it safe to land,
he looked back again and Salazar was nowhere to be seen. The father-of-four was eventually recovered
by a diver who was at the scene and family members performed CPR on him for an hour and a half
while emergency services tried to reach the remote location.
Unfortunately, he didn’t survive, but his heroic actions had saved his young son’s life.
7. Jacqueline Watts
In 2017, as she was preparing to leave for Washington to visit her husband,
Jaqueline Watts dropped her pets off at a relative’s house. She was scheduled to leave
that night, but never made it home and missed her flight. Her family notified the authorities
and her car was located the same night. It had been left abandoned on the road by a river,
with its ignition still on and the emergency lights flashing. All her personal belongings
were inside and the passenger door stood ajar, but there was no sign of a struggle
or of anything stolen. The only clues the authorities had was multiple witness reports
that stated they’d seen her chasing a dog in a little white sweater. Searching the area, they
discovered her and the dog’s bodies washed along the shore of the river. Both had died of drowning.
The 33-year-old was an avid animal lover and her determination to save a life came as no surprise
to friends and family. The dog was identified as “Ringo” and had been missing since the weekend.
6. Miranda Birdsall
In 2017 Miranda Birdsall was on an extended holiday to Switzerland, from Australia,
to spend time with her partner. One day, she set out with a close friend to cycle around Lake Biel
when the duo heard a scream from the water’s edge. They spotted a woman who appeared to
have been trying to save her dog from the water, when she herself fell in. Miranda was the first
to arrive and immediately climbed a railing to reach out to the woman while her friend went
to a nearby restaurant for help. What none of the victims realized at the time was that there was a
major electrical fault in the supply chain to the marina which sent electrical currents through the
railing and water. A post-mortem examination revealed that their deaths had come quickly
and none of them had suffered. Miranda’s three children, who were still back in Australia,
were proud of their mother’s selflessness and weren’t shocked by her actions.
5. Folajimi “Jimmy” Olubunmi-Adewole
On April the 24th of 2021, around midnight, a young woman was seen falling from a London
Bridge into the River Thames. Two men dove into the water to rescue her, before emergency
services had to be called to save all three. The coastguard and the police marine units were able
to successfully save the woman and one of the men, but the third unidentified man could not be found,
despite the use of helicopters and multiple rescue teams. The next morning, at around 6 am,
the body of Folajimi Olubunmi-Adewole was found and his family was notified of his heroic efforts.
4. Lucy Knight
43-year-old Lucy Knight was outside a shopping center in Auckland, New Zealand,
on September the 23rd of 2015, when a man tried to steal a woman’s purse right in front of her.
Good Samaritan Knight, noticing the theft, tried to intervene but the culprit punched
her in the back of the head sending her tumbling to the ground. The impact fractured her skull
and caused a brain bleed. The mother-of-six spent the next month undergoing 2 surgeries
to relieve the pressure in her brain and replace the broken bone with a titanium plate.
17-year-old Hendrix Hauwai, who was reported as having had a rough upbringing, was arrested and
charged for the incident. A judge sentenced him to 4 years and 9 months behind bars.
3. Gary Davies
In early January of 2021, 36-year-old Gary Davies’ dog escaped and fell down a hole
in a field, and got trapped. Unwilling to leave his dog to die, the Welsh man decided to dig his
way into the hole to free it but, as he did so, a mound of earth collapsed on top of him. There
was enough earth to bury him and he was crushed until emergency services arrived. He was pulled
out of the hole and rushed to the hospital where he died 5 days later. A post-mortem examination
revealed he died from traumatic brain injury while no news on the dog’s fate was reported.
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2. Leonie Hanson
An Open Water diving instructor, Leonie Hanson was taking a student out on the Mornington Peninsula,
in Australia, on June the 9th of 2016, when they ran into an emergency. Desperate to
save her student, witnesses on the shore heard her screaming for help from just off the pier.
A local restaurant owner by the name of Robert De Santis ran over to try and help,
reporting to police that Hanson was holding up another unconscious diver, yelling at him to
“hold him”. The duo struggled in their gear, but Hanson refused to let go of her student
even when given the chance to save herself. De Santis couldn’t hold them both and watched them
slip under the choppy water as Hanson let go of the life ring from pure exhaustion. Hanson
had been a certified instructor for almost a year and their deaths were not treated as suspicious.
1. Franziska Stegbauer
In April of 2009, officers were called to a home in Indianapolis
to find 3 people suffering from serious stab wounds. The most severe of the injuries had been
inflicted on 77-year-old Franziska Stegbauer, who was not breathing when the police arrived
at the scene. According to reports, a sword fight had broken out between her grandson
and brother-in-law, when Franziska tried to step in. Her wounds were fatal and,
although police weren’t completely sure who’d dealt the final blow, her 39-year-old grandson,
Chris Rondeau, was arrested for attempted murder and held at a hospital detention unit.
Franziska’s brother-in-law was also rushed to the hospital in critical condition.
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