People who've saved a life (or several) directly

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

I’m looking for famous examples of people (both fictional and real) who’ve saved lives. I’m not too interested in people who’ve saved lives indirectly through inventing a vaccine or preventing a war (these are easy enough to find online), but rather more direct examples.

The ones I’ve come up with so far are:

  • Pocahontas, who according to legend saved the life of John Smith

  • Robinson Crusoe saved the life of Friday, making him his slave :dubious:

  • Gunga Din saves the life of a British soldier in Rudyard Kipling’s poem with the same name
    Anyone who can come up with any other examples?

2

Superman saved Lois Lane’s life any number of times.

3

Edwin booth, brother of the infamous John Wilkes Booth, saved the life of Abraham Lincoln’s son, Robert Lincoln.

4

Clarence Darrow probably saved the lives of Nathan Freudenthal Leopold Jr., and Richard Albert Loeb. Leopold, more temporarily.

5

Ignaz Semmelweis saved hundreds if not thousands of lives simply by washing his hands.

6

Kirk went and found Spock and brought Dr. McCoy to Vulcan. Thereby saving Spocks life.
P.S. my life was saved by another Doper (dropzone)

7

James Harrison, an Australian blood donor, is credited with saving the lives of two miilion babies. His blood provided the base for a Rh factor medicine. His last donation was national news, with babies and their moms present.

I saw a video clip of him saying he’d never seen, in 1173 sessions, the needle in his arm, as he didn’t like needles. Talk about guts.

8

Sled dogs Balto and team and Togo and team, who raced diphtheria antitoxen to Nome, Alaska.

StG

9

Nicholas Winton who saved 669 mostly Jew children from the Nazis.

Similarly, Irena Sendler saved about Jewish 2500 children from the ghetto.

StG

10

Need to make sure this guy is there: Lenny Skutnik - Wikipedia

If you’ve never seen the video, goggle around–it should be easy to find.

11

First post. Homework assignment?

12

Desmond Doss.

13

I even remembered who it was, from the name. Also when it was first on the news. Braving that icy water was amazing.

14

Im not sure if you’re looking famous examples, or examples of famous people, but…

Eddie Albert, the lead actor in the sitcom Green Acres who was also twice nominated for an Oscar, saved the lives of ~50 Marines during the Battle of Tarawa in 1943. He was the pilot of a landing craft who jumped into the shallow waters of a lagoon to pull out his fellow soldiers, all while under heavy enemy machine gun fire.

He earned the Bronze Star for that.

15

When I was about 12, I looked out the window and saw flames in the neighbor’s window. Told Mom, she phoned firemen, and saved the house with minor damage, but nobody was home to be saved.

16

Didn’t Muhammad Ali once talk a guy in from a ledge?

17

Vasily Arkhipov.

18

When I was seven, I went to the next-door neighbor’s house to ask him to come out and play. As we all did at the time, I pushed open the kitchen door to call to him. He wasn’t home, but his grandmother was lying on the kitchen floor. She’d had a stroke. I ran home and told my mother who called the fire department. The rescue squad came. She told me later that I saved her life.

19

Robert Downey Jr. saved the life of this woman’s grandmother.

20

I’ve had a few successful saves doing defibrillation at cardiac arrests. In 40 years, I’d say I had 3 decent recoveries where they went on to live for years without significant deficit. Is that what you’re talking about?

But my numbers are low compared to ER and ICU docs and nurses and paramedics and EMTs. Give them accolades.