This dzzbidbaef
story comes to us from a reader named Steve who boils it down thusly:
Three kids are standing outside their house.ÂWhen a stranger gets out of his car, running toward them and yelling, they run inside, probably afraid of the guy acting crazy.ÂNevertheless, the stranger follows the kids into the house, still yelling. Did the kids not know to lock the door? Had they not been taught the perils of home invasions? Did the out-of-control stranger break through the door?ÂWhatever the case, the situation was life-threatening, but not in the way one would assume.ÂÂThe kids were outside watching the vacant house next door burn. The crazy stranger was an off-duty EMS who saw their house also on fire as he drove by. When he got inside, the heat felt like an oven to him. The kids listened to him and got out of the house. The crazy stranger returned to the heat to retrieve SEVEN more family members scattered among all 3 levels of the house, no injuries, not long before it was fully engulfed.
Read all about it here. And remember that the overwhelming  majority of people would rather help than hurt a child. (Even if most of us would be afraid to run into a burning building.) (Or at least I would.)
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And by the way, Donnell Gibson, the hero of our story, spent his senior year of high school homeless — and yet he was the first member of his family to graduate. Then he attended a special program to train low income St. Paul, MN, residents to work in the medical fields. Hats off to Donnell, and St. Paul. – L
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Sometimes seeing a man grabbing terrified kids just does the heart good.
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I’m just waiting for the headline ‘Let’s hear it for strangers stabbing kids’, about a doctor giving a kid an emergency tracheotomy… 🙂
Americans are suffering from end-stage stupidity when it comes to fabricated fear.
Yes, Papilio, just that 😊😊.
Too bad the Star Tribune lacks a comment feature because I want to see what the below-average Joe thinks of the story.
Haha! Oh, I HAD to read this when I read the headline. We’re reading Free Range Kids (the book) for our book club soon. I’m looking forward to it. Should be a great discussion!
This reminds me of something my brother told me, in response to the old maternal question: If your friend jumped off a bridge, would you do it too? He said Of course I would! My friends are smart, so if they think it’s safer to jump than to stay on the bridge, I probably don’t have time to look around and figure out the problem myself. I’d jump!
Worst-first thinking has officially come to the younger generation.
My cousins and I are 10, 12, 13, and 16. We are at are grandparent’s for Easter, and got permission to bike a half mile to a nearby school park. After about 5 minutes of climbing play equipment, sending bikes down the slides to see what they do to the puddles at the bottom, and daring each other to climb impossible-to-climb rooftops, a car pulled into the parking lot and a couple came out, talking on their phones.
You could feel the air change. The 10 and 12-year-old’s kept playing, but took less risks and kept glancing over their shoulders at the couple, and the 16-year-old watched them. Finally, he calmly told us that we were leaving and we begrudgingly biked back down the hill, across the creek, and down the sidewalk.
Why? We were having a great time playing games, and a couple comes out and stands there. They were talking on their phones and never once looked at us. They probably got a call while they were driving and pulled over in the nearest public place so they wouldn’t be preoccupied in the car. However, 10 to 16-year-old’s minds skipped to the worst conclusion, and were scared enough to get 4 fun-loving kids to leave a playground and go back to a house full of doting adults.
What had the world come to?
this is very nice post. thanks for sharing it.
catkru – We you concerned that the strangers were a threat or that they were calling the authorities to report unsupervised children?