Do you have what it takes to be a teen hero?
Opinion
Teen heroes
Bullets, blazing houses, speeding trains don't stop them
By Brad Marshall : May 26, 2009
When gunshots suddenly rang out from among the 300 spectators of a high school basketball game in Kansas City last February, one of the teenage basketball players saw a 6-year-old boy standing in the line of fire.
Jullaion Jones, 19, ran from the court, quickly got the 6-year-old to the floor, and shielded the boy with his own body from the 8 people in the gunfight, until it was safe to let him up.
This teen is a hero. No doubt about it.
In Wales
a few weeks ago an amazing teenage boy ran into a neighbor's
burning house and saved 5 children when he heard them screaming and
saw smoke billowing from the blazing house.
The children's parents were out visiting relatives a few minutes away when the house caught fire. Leighton Griffiths, 15, who is an asthmatic, managed to lead or carry all of the 5 children to safety through the blazing house.
He is a hero too. Anyone whose main goal is to save the lives of others instead of thinking of obstacles to prevent them is definitely a hero in my eyes.
In the news last week was 18-year-old Joshua Ebright from Martin County. Josh, from Community Christian High School, was stuck in traffic 3 weeks ago when a flat-bed semi-truck slammed into the back of another truck and caused it to burst into flames. It created a 9-car pile-up.
Josh ran to the burning truck, pried the door open, and helped drag the incapacitated driver to safety.
A few days ago, Josh received the Martin County Sheriff's Department's Youth Citizenship and Heroism Award, and $1000. In presenting the award, Sheriff Robert Crowder said, “This young man, with the others, took a calculated risk and definitely saved the life of the occupant of that vehicle. Without regard for his own safety, he went to that driver's aid. It speaks very well of his character.”
These reports of teen heroes make me confident that this current generation of teens has some heroic and selfless people to run the world in the near future.
Sure, there are idiotic teens around who get involved in sexting, cyber-bullying, train-surfing, and other selfish and thoughtless acts. But there are a lot of teens around who have the hero's instinct to put others' safety above their own.
In Illinois, a 17-year-old risked his life to save an elderly woman who was moments away from being hit by a passenger train. With Amtrak trains barreling toward him from both directions, the youth quickly opened the woman's car door, unbuckled her seat belt, and carried her to safety just seconds before one of the trains slammed into her Lexus.
When I started looking through news reports of teen heroes, I found they were everywhere. Like the 16-year-old girl who was babysitting when a fire broke out. She calmly made sure all the children followed her out of the blazing house. And the 18-year-old student who ran to the aid of a pensioner who had severed an artery in his arm. The teen applied pressure to the arm and used his first-aid knowledge to help the 80-year-old pensioner until an ambulance arrived.
I am flabbergasted by these teens who have such an instinct for heroism that they rush to help someone who is in trouble without thinking first about themselves.
I recall Jesus' words in John 15:13, “Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.”
Jesus must also be encouraged by today's teen heroes who instinctively follow this principle without a thought for themselves.
Other opinion pieces:
- Sexting kills
- Michael Jackson: He almost had it all
- Cyber-bullying: What teens should know but don't
- Train surfing: See the world while you lose your limbs
- Miss California vs. The Beast Perez Hilton
- 3 easiest ways to lose weight?
- Why have people stopped being polite?
- Why criticizing others is risky
- Evolution of laughter? Ha ha ha
- Ban the burqa? (And cut down on stonings and amputations while you're at it)
- Abortion doctor shot dead
- Early human fossil turns out to be an ape
- Did John Lennon sell his soul to the Devil?
- Latest “missing link” turns out to be just a dead animal
- Evolution trees: The problem with those dotted lines
- Why birds have NOT evolved from dinosaurs
List of opinion articles.
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