Rescue me! Stories of heroics & love

July 15, 2012 9:03 PM

What are your favorite amazing stories?

I'd really like is to spend a couple hours reading feelgood stories and tearjerkers about amazing people and animals. Personal stories, internet favorites, it's all good. Think 'dog saves crippled owner from alligator' and 'apartment manager runs 5 blocks, hurdles fence to catch baby thrown from burning building' type of stories --something to buck me up and remind me of the spontaneous good in the world. I know the internet's brimming over with that kind of thing, and I'd love to read the best of the best!

So tell me a story, link me in, share with me somethimg fun, something amazing, something memorable, something so beautiful it makes you want to cry...What is your best of the internet's best?

posted by Ys to grab bag (15 answers total)

Fiona's story just kills me. Dog rescue + amazing people = puddle of tears.
posted by sweetkid at 9:11 PM on July 15, 2012 [5 favorites]

A story about two special dogs-one seeing eye dog and one blind dog with a great bond and story
posted by livinglearning at 9:11 PM on July 15, 2012 [1 favorite]

Taking a spin through the most highly-favorited Mefi comments of all time is a good bet for amazing awesomeocity. (See also: Ask Mefi)
posted by Rhaomi at 9:25 PM on July 15, 2012

Btw, here's the one about the guy jumping the fence :)
posted by Ys at 10:22 PM on July 15, 2012

(hm..link doesn't work...you may have to google it youself: it's "5 Unknown Schmucks Who Turned Into Superheroes," I believe.)
posted by Ys at 10:27 PM on July 15, 2012

Apologies if this is too cynical, but you don't specifically request true stories: The glurge page from snopes may be right up your alley - some of them are even true.
posted by Dr Dracator at 2:22 AM on July 16, 2012

Hm the glurges are superfun, but the fact that they'e not true kind of knocks them out of the "restore my faith in the universe" category thslat's underpinning this question. The dog stories were freakin' awesome! I bawled like a baby for fiojna & loved every minute of it.
posted by Ys at 9:32 AM on July 16, 2012

I guess I'm partial to animal stories, but I love Molly the Three-Legged Pony. If you Google, you will find more articles and photos.
posted by radioamy at 10:00 AM on July 16, 2012 [1 favorite]

The Chicken Soul for the Soul books often include this type of story. There are about six bajillion of them, including ones focused on animals.
posted by Wretch729 at 10:19 AM on July 16, 2012

Check out Hideaki Akaiwa: link

Fauja Singh started running marathons when he was 89.
posted by foxjacket at 10:38 AM on July 16, 2012 [1 favorite]

An amazing story of heroics -- not so much love, but almost unimaginable endurance and strength with humility and quiet good humor -- is that of Sir Douglas Mawson's journey back to rescue in the Antarctic after an attempt to map parts of Wilkes Land. Evan S. Connell tells a wonderful version of it in The White Lantern (reprinted in The Aztec Treasure House -- and available on Google Books! Starting on page 100). It's simultaneously horrendous -- like, the worst trip against the worst odds in unimaginable privation and struggle -- and weirdly funny (Mawson's gift for understatement and can-do spirit is incredible, and borderline insane) and inspiring. He just does not give up. Things get weird, things get bad, things get worse, things get beyond horrible, and Mawson refuses and refuses to stop trying.
posted by finnb at 11:47 AM on July 16, 2012

There was this Reddit thread last weekend.
posted by Night_owl at 5:54 PM on July 16, 2012 [1 favorite]

The Small Miracles books may be right up your alley.
posted by SisterHavana at 10:21 PM on July 16, 2012

Modoc: The True Story of the Greatest Elephant That Ever Lived
posted by futz at 6:30 AM on July 17, 2012

Guys, those were AWESOME, thank you! Think the Reddit thread was closest to what I had in mind when I asked, so I marked it Best Answer, but it was prettymuch all good :) Really liked the Hideaki Akaiwa link, too :)
posted by Ys at 8:05 AM on July 18, 2012