Very sad. A true hero dies after saving a four year old girl from drowning.

[Cleita]

http://www.today.com/news/good-samaritan-who-saved-young-girl-dies-injuries-6C10480520

Please go to the link. It's a short but sad story so there isn't enough to excerpt to avoid copyright infringement.

I wonder why a good guy like this would be so unfortunate to die after performing a heroic deed. He leaves behind his family and being uninsured, many medical bills. I hope the family of the child he saved can help out some in gratitude.

[sinkingfeeling]

1. Truly a hero who died to protect a child.

[Whisp]

2. This reminds me of Joseph Campbell:

It's been a long time since I read his stuff, but this story made me think of this, and I found it to add to your post. It has such impact, hard to explain:

“The great German philosopher Schopenhauer, in a magnificent essay on 'The Foundation of Morality,' treats of this transcendental spiritual experience. How is it, he asks, that an individual can so forget himself and his own safety that he will put himself and his life in jeopardy to save another from death or pain—as though that other’s life were his own, that other’s danger his own? Such a one is then acting, Schopenhauer answers, out of an instinctive recognition of the truth that he and that other in fact are one. He has been moved not from the lesser, secondary knowledge of himself as separate from others, but from an immediate experience of the greater, truer truth, that we are all one in the ground of our being. Schopenhauer’s name for this motivation is “compassion,” Mitleid, and he identifies it as the one and only inspiration of inherently moral action. It is founded, in his view, in a metaphysically valid insight. For a moment one is selfless, boundless, without ego."

Excerpt From: Joseph Campbell, “Myths to Live By.” Joseph Campbell Foundation, 2011-03-11. iBooks.

[Jenoch]

3. If someone is going to die at

that age, going out as a hero is about the best way to go.

RIP Mike.

[gvstn]

4. Tragic.

I had read where they were starting a fund to help with medical/family expenses and it sounded like the family had a full plate then. Now, to hear he has died from his injuries just makes the situation even sadder.

RIP Mike. And comfort to his young family.

[Cooley Hurd]

5. That's exactly how my father died...

In 1968, we went boating on Cayuga Lake in CNY. My 5 year old sister fell out of the boat and my father jumped in and saved her, only to be then caught in the dense seaweeds. He became entangled and was pulled under.

The Sheriff's Dept divers pulled his body out about two hours later. My sister, now 50, still feels like she caused my father's death. In reality, he failed to put life jackets on us all (in 1968, such life-saving devices were optional).

I was just under 3 years old and have no recollection of it. Thankfully, I guess.

[Cleita]

6. I so sorry to hear that and your sister shouldn't feel guilty. It was not her

responsibility. Also, don't be hard on dad either. Back then normal precautions we take today, like life jackets, seat belts, bicycle helmets etc. were not thought of as essential for safety. I'm sure he would have done things differently today knowing that those kind of accidents are preventable.

I'll tell you a funny story about life jackets. The first ocean liner I was on, when I was seven years old, that had a swimming pool, also had a bunch of mean kids traveling with us as well. The older kids always tried dragging the younger kids to the deep end and almost drowned one. The captain hearing about it from the parents made a rule that all children under twelve couldn't use the pool without wearing a life jacket. It solved the problem somewhat. It did nothing to make the mean kids nicer but at least it made them less dangerous.