Heroic Sacrifice/Real Life: Difference between revisions

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* A group Heroic Sacrifice - [[Crowning Moment of Awesome|United Flight 93]] on [[Tear Jerker|September 11th]]. After learning that three other planes had been used as weapons against thousands, [[Badass Bystander|passengers]] [[You Shall Not Pass|assaulted their hijackers]], [[Taking You with Me|knowing it would probably lead to their deaths]]. [[Everybody Dies|It did]], but [[Bittersweet Ending|countless lives were saved]] at wherever the intended target site was. Various cell phone calls to loved ones indicate that [[Failure Is the Only Option|the passengers knew exactly what they were doing and there was no chance of surviving.]]

* [[Badass Bookworm|Prof. Liviu Librescu.]] During the Virginia Tech massacre, [[You Shall Not Pass|he held the door of his classroom shut]], allowing most of his students escape. [[Made of Iron|He was shot through the door five times]] before finally succumbing to a [[Boom! Headshot!|shot to the head.]]

* [[Remember the Alamo!|The Alamo]] in general. The lost include [[Davy Crockett]].

* [http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2006/mar/26/nuclear.russia Firefighters who responded to the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster], many of whom realized they were exposing themselves to lethal levels of radiation and condemning themselves to painful deaths by rushing in to extinguish the burning reactor but did so anyway.

** The depressing thing about this is the reason the other car was out of control. ''The driver was trying to take her sweater off without stopping''.

* [http://www.aolhealth.com/2010/11/16/man-dies-after-giving-his-brother-life-saving-liver-transplant/?ncid=webmail Ryan Arnold] saved his older brother Chad Arnold's life by giving him his liver for a transplant, but died shortly after the surgery was completed.

* [http://earthquakestrips.blogspot.com/2008/06/strip-2-boy-who-lived.html This] and [http://earthquakestrips.blogspot.com/2008/06/strip-8-last-lesson.html this], from the Sichuan Earthquake

* When the Halifax Explosion of 1917 was about to erupt, train dispatcher [[wikipedia:Vince Coleman chr(28)train dispatcherchr(29)|Vince Coleman]] had an opportunity to flee, but remembered that a train was due in town any minute. He stayed at his post and transmitted the following telegraph: "Stop trains. Munitions ship on fire. Approaching Pier 6. Goodbye." Coleman was killed at his post, while the trains involved stopped a safe distance away from the explosion, saving hundreds of lives. What's more, the message was communicated throughout the rail network, allowing other dispatchers to immediately respond, rerouting traffic and sending relief supplies.

* According to some, Vic Morrow's death during the filming of [[The Twilight Zone]] movie in 1983. One of the stunt helicopters crashed near to the filming place, he saved some of the child actors that were with him... and then was [[Off with His Head|decapitated]] by the 'copter blades while trying to save the last two, who died alongside him.

* [http://www.aolnews.com/2011/03/06/louisiana-mom-jalisa-granger-dies-protecting-baby-from-tornado/ Jalisa Granger], a young mother who died sheltering her baby during a tornado.

** In fairness, the Chernobyl disaster was, of course, far worse ('''massively''' higher levels of radiation, inferior or lacking safety equipment and procedures, much less transparency). Certainly a [[Crowning Moment of Awesome]] for the 50, but it likely won't turn out to be a [[Heroic Sacrifice]].

** As a corollary: all of the old people [http://mb.melmyfinger.com/post/6131047852 who willingly line up to clean radiation in Fukishima]{{Dead link}} qualify as [[Badass Grandpa|badass grandpas]] [[Never Mess with Granny|or grannies]], exposing themselves to radiation so younger people won't have to. The highest levels involved may result in an increased risk of cancer from twenty to forty years in the future, so they figure they don't have as much to lose.

** Fujio Koshita, at 57 the senior Otsuchi firefighter, died standing on top of the firehouse ringing the old warning bell, because the March 11th earthquake killed all electrical power in the town. His bell was heard ringing through the town until the tsunami swept him, and the firehouse, away. According to other firefighters, he violated his own rule about rescue workers; “Don’t die. Rescuers must stay alive” because your job is to help other people.

* Arland Williams, the "sixth passenger" of [[wikipedia:Air Florida Flight 90|Air Florida Flight 90]]. When the plane crashed in the icy Potomac River, he and five other survivors scrambled to the tail section of the destroyed aircraft. Twice he was tossed a lifeline from a helicopter. Twice he handed it off to others more severely injured than himself. When the chopper returned again he had slipped below the surface, the only victim to die by drowning.

** By extension, all of the firefighters and policemen who stayed in/near the World Trade Center in an attempt to evacuate as many people as possible.

* Michael Monsoor, US Navy SEAL; a grenade landed on a roof where he was part of an overlook. He jumped on it and sacrificed his life, taking the brunt of the blast and keeping the shrapnel from hitting any of his friends.

* A shooting between gangs occurs near an elementary school with innocents caught in the crossfire. A mother [http://www.myfoxny.com/dpp/news/vigil-held-for-slain-brooklyn-mom-20111023-gjw shielded her daughter from the gunfire and lost her life protecting her child.]

* Everyone's heard about the band on the ''Titanic'', but fewer people remember her engineering crew. The ship's engineers remained at their posts until the end, keeping the engines running as long as they could so that the lights would stay on and stave off panic. None of them survived the disaster.

* Kirsty MacColl was on holiday in Mexico with her family, diving in an area that was supposed to be off limits to boats, when a speeding powerboat appeared heading straight for her son. She managed to push him out of the way in time for him to suffer only minor injuries, but she herself was struck and killed instantly.

* Kansas City Chiefs running back [[wikipedia:Joe Delaney|Joe Delaney]] dove into a lake despite his own inexperince in swimming to save three drowning children. Sadly, not only did Delaney lose his life in the process, but only one of the three children survived.

* U.S. Confederate soldier Calvin Crozier, who was headed back to his home in Texas at the end of the war, got into a scuffle with some aggressive Union soldiers in the town of Newberry, South Carolina. During the fight, he non-fatally cut one of them in the back of the neck, but the soldiers later claimed he murdered one of them and set out to arrest and execute him. Crozier was long gone, but found out that an innocent man had been arrested in his place. He returned to the town and turned himself in to save the other man's life, and was unlawfully executed by the soldiers.

* [[wikipedia:Maximilian Kolbe|Saint Maximilian Maria Kolbe]] was a Polish Catholic priest who first was a missionary and thus went [[Walking the Earth]] for years. During [[World War II]], this [[Badass Preacher]] was imprisoned in the Auschwitz concentration camp for openly speaking out against the Nazi regime through noth a newspaper and a private radio station, and sheltering (among others) 2,000 Jews. He willingly went into the hunger bunker in place of of another prisoner, a Polish woodworker who had a wife and kids; he continued to calmly celebrate Holy Mass in the cell for the other prisoners, and was finally killed by a fatal injection of phenol after all the other prisoners had already died of starvation. He was made a saint in October 1982 by Pope John Paul II, [[Crowning Moment of Heartwarming|and the man whose life he saved was there.]]