Some North Carolina firefighters from the Apex firefighters department were completely stunned by the kindness of a random act of a woman at Walmart. It still remains a mystery to the identity of the woman, but firefighters hope that she will at least get their sincere message of thanks. It all began when the crew from engine number 2, at Walmart buying some groceries had to abandon their groceries before they could even complete their purchase because of an emergency call. The left straight away for the emergency without a second thought.

The crew said to the Walmart cashier that they would be back to pay for their groceries before they quickly left, there was no time to spare at all, they had to leave straight away to the emergency call. Firefighter, Andrew Baker said:

“It’s important to us,” …it takes no more than 90 seconds to leave on a call… “We take a lot of pride in trying to get out.”

When the fire crew returned to Walmart there was a surprise waiting for them, an employee, a woman, had paid for all of the groceries, with a note on the receipt saying “Thanks for all you do”. All the crew asked who the woman was, but nobody knew who it was, the whole crew left feeling overjoyed and grateful for such a wonderful thing that happened. Jeffery Jones, Firefighter said:

“The nice employees at Walmart told us that it was a lady behind us in line” … “But we never did actually get to meet her and tell her, ‘thank you.’”

The hope is that the storey will find its way back to the mystery woman and she will know that she is welcome to visit the fire station any time at all. The firefighters said:

“We would like to tell her thank you from the bottom of our hearts”

Sadness and heartache are commonplace in the role of a firefighter, putting out fires, emergency calls, sickness and death are all too commonplace. So, such a simple gesture was really appreciated, for the whole crew to know they really are appreciated like this brings such light to the dark days they endure and make it all seem even more worthwhile. Baker said:

“It makes me feel like there are still good people in the world” …“You don’t get that every day, so to me it gives you a warm feeling inside to know that people really do care about you.”

We will probably never know who the mysterious woman was, but her kindness is truly amazing and inspires all of us. Just also to realise that to make a better world we all need to give what we can to help others and to help the brave people, whether it is firefighters to army personnel who keep us safe and secure risking their lives for us.

A young teenage boy from Tasmania had a terrible accident with a laser pointer that caused him to lose about 75 percent of his sight, as reported by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Ben Armitage, an optometrist of 14 years to the family said:

“He came in to see me and on the Friday night he’d got a hold of a laser pen and unfortunately shined it in his eyes for a very brief period of time”

Ben took a photo of the boy’s eyes and discovered that he had burned his retinas and irrevocably damaged his eyes. Ben had said that:

“Unfortunately, that’s the area where your detailed central vision takes place and therefore it’s had somewhat of an exaggerated effect on how much sight he’s lost”

The damage occurred immediately that the boy pointed the laser into his eyes, his vision was impaired exactly at that moment the laser light shone on the back of his eyes, he didn’t feel any pain but the damage had been done. The part of his eyes that were damaged was an area called the macula, in cases like this that meant that the blindness was very likely to be permanent. The optometrist, Ben, was hopeful that some of his vision may return once the swelling had subsided a little, however the boy had to be prepared for the fact that he may only live his life with 25 percent vision. The Chief Executive of Optometry in Tasmania, Geoff Squibb, has since warned parents about the dangers of laser pointers and especially in relation to children, who don’t always really understand the gravity and seriousness of or trying foolish things like shining a laser into thier eyes. He says:

“Parents are better off trying to warn children of them after this particular case where the future of a young person has been seriously affected.”

The repercussions of this can be absolutely devastating, what looks like a harmless toy is in fact a ‘silent destroyer’ of retinal components of your vision.

In 2009 Emily Gavigan, during her sophomore year at the University of Scranton, was alarmingly paranoid and regularly rambled. She was convinced that terrible things were about to happen to her family. Emily’s parents were very concerned too but didn’t really know what to do, but the Gavigans were not able to turn a blind eye to the situation any more, especially when Emily mysteriously disappeared one afternoon! For the afternoon in question none of the family were able to get in touch with her for a full 24 hours, until finally they got a call from Emily’s Grandparents in New Jersey to say that she had turned up there unexpectedly. She had driven all the way to New Jersey from Pennsylvania without any money at all, flying through the tolls as she went without paying! WHen she arrived there she said that a truck had followed her all the way. Grandfather looked out of the window for the truck, but he didn’t see any trucks, emily’s parents came to the conclusion that it really was the time to get her some professional help. The doctors thought that Emily’s problems were psychological, like her parents had thought, and though they ran tests on her and tried various medcine, nothing seemed to have an effect. The treatments, if anything, made Emily even worse and at this point the doctors thought that her condition may be physical in nature, like a tumor on the brain, but they couldn’t find any physical evidence that this was the case either. The whole family tried everything they could, but desperately nothing really helped or got to the bottom of the problem and all the time Emily was still getting worse. In a strange turn of events the family were alerted to an episode of the ‘Today Show’, and to their surprise and shock something made them sit up and pay attention! The story they heard was of a New York Post reporter, Susannah Cahalan, she wrote an article about the time she spent a month thinking she was for sure losing the plot. The storey sounded very similar to what the family had experienced with Emily, which prompted the doctors to then run tests on Emily! Susannah suffered from a condition of anti-NMDA receptor encephalitis, which causes the immune system to attack parts of the brain, causing neurological damage and strange behaviour. Emily’s doctors were not receptive at all to the family’s suggestion and queries, they were convinced that the family were just grasping at straws. After some time though Emily was in fact tested for the condition, and guess what, it was positive! Now Emily had not only a correct diagnosis but could be considered for treatment that could actually help. The Long road to recovery had finally started and there was light at the end of Emily’s long dark tunnel, finally. She could at last begin to return to the life she had before the condition robbed her of her mental faculties. And so in 2012, after Emily had recovered she then joined Cahalan on the ‘Today Show’ and shared her story too of how the show had really saved her life. Many miles away in Omaha, Nebraska, another family, the Jensen family, were watching this time as the Gavin’s had previously. Their daughter Madison was going through the same sort of experiences and had the same symptoms Emily had. Madison’s mother really didn’t know what was going on with her daughter, that is until she saw the show too. Then, after that, she felt positive that she had found what would also save her 6 year old. Madison is the wonderful age of 10, and is living happily thanks to Cahalan and Emily sharing and talking about their stories on television. Her mother hopes that one day they will be able to also share Madison’s tale and again help someone else too!