good news

Good News Friday: Toddler saved by folks after falling on subway tracks

A toddler in a stroller ended up falling on the subway tracks when her mother left the stroller to throw something in the trash. The stroller was not locked and the little girl was like “they see me rollin’; they hatin'”. All terrible jokes aside, she fell. Her mother went in after her but ended up spraining her ankle.

Just as the woman jumped down onto the tracks after the stroller, a few Good Samaritans, the subway cleaner, came to their rescue and helped bring the mother and daughter onto the platform.

Together, they got the girl and the mother out of there. The mother got treated for the ankle and the little girl had a few cuts and a bruise. Both are fine.

-Dante Writes

Good News Friday: Two families donate organs to each other

This is a story that you simply don’t see often. This story is really special.

It starts off typical:

After Kalem Millard’s fatal accident, his parents made the difficult decision to donate his pancreas, which ultimately saved the life of Jake MacKinnon.

Okay, this is when things get interesting:

Nearly 10 years later, Bill Millard, Kalem’s father, was in desperate need of a kidney transplant after suffering from diabetes. Jake MacKinnon’s mother, Janice MacKinnon, will donate her kidney to Bill Millard Friday at California Pacific Medical Center in San Francisco.

How about that? C’mon now…you really don’t see this type of story often.

ABC has the story.

-DALANEL

Today in good news history: The first open heart surgery

Daniel Williams became the first man to perform open heart surgery. It was cool that he was an African American. I’m just saying. Anyway, I’ll let Biography take over:

In 1893, Williams continued to make history when he operated on James Cornish, a man with a severe stab wound to his chest who was brought to Provident. Without the benefits of a blood transfusion or modern surgical procedures, Williams successfully sutured Cornish’s pericardium (the membranous sac enclosing the heart), becoming the first person to perform open-heart surgery. Cornish lived for many years after the operation.

You can read Williams’ bio here if ya want. Clearly, this type of surgery has saved many.

-DALANEL

Today in good news history: Sliced bread, baby!

Laugh if you want, but sliced bread has been awesome. Let’s take a look at how it all started.

On this day in 1928, the Chillicothe Baking Company produced the first loaves of sliced bread.

Located in Chillicothe, Mo., the bread-maker used a slicing machine created by Otto Frederick Rohwedder of Davenport, Iowa, to mechanically slice its Kleen Maid Sliced Bread.

The baker advertised its sliced bread as “the greatest forward step in the baking industry since bread was wrapped.” The saying “the greatest thing since sliced bread” is thought to have grown out of the advertising slogan.

Well, thank you Mr. Otto!

Hold on now! Did you know that sliced bread was banned at some point?

After being initiated in January, the ban on sliced bread was lifted in March of 1943. The government said that the savings were not as much as were expected, but the quick turnaround of the ban likely had to do with the severe backlash from producers and consumers.

Really great article by Mental Floss.

Sliced bread changed the lives of Americans and eventually the world, for the better if only because it was more convenient.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a PB&J sandwich to eat.

-DALANEL

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Good News Friday: Girl uses Facebook to save her father’s life

Facebook is bad news. That’s why a ten year old girl used it to save her father’s life. Such a terrible network, that Facebook. More like Fakebook, right?

So, her dad was sitting on the porch during a storm and the high winds knocked down a tree on top of him. In the perfect horror movie setting, the service was down for the cell phones and there was no landline. So, there was no way to contact anybody for help.

Wait.

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Good News Friday: Girl meets man who saved her as infant

Oh this story just…it’s a really nice story.

A high school senior who was graduating got a surprise that day: She met the man who found her abandoned in a cemetery.

The man’s name is Charlie Heflin and he found the baby…barely.

See, he was a volunteer firefighter. And, as he sat in his truck, listening to his scanner, a report from dispatch came in that a woman left a baby in the cemetery. After 10 minutes, this baby was still not found, so Charlie went to go find her.

“I pulled up in front of the cemetery.  There was a large pine tree,” Heflin said.  “There was about a foot of snow on the ground.  There were footprints all over the area so it looked like somebody had been there.  I couldn’t find anything.  I walked around the pine tree a couple of times and I didn’t see anything.”  Heflin walked back to his truck but said something told him to go back and check one more time.

“As I approached the tree, I heard a baby whimper.  I thought, ‘Oh, she’s here.’”  Heflin said Skyler was wrapped in a plaid Raggedy Anne blanket.  The day-old infant still had mucus on her and her umbilical cord that was tied off with a shoe string.

He immediately wiped pine leaves off her  and wrapped her in his winter overcoat and pressed her up against his volunteer fire fighter fleece to warm her up.

“I called it in and handed her to the ambulance and that was the last time I saw her,” Heflin said.

That was 1995. This baby was eventually adopted and named Skyler. Last name James. And, yes, by the quote I gave, this particular day was her birthday. The meeting at the graduation was rather special:

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