All dads deserve a big hug on Father’s Day, but some have really gone above and beyond the call of duty in the past year. From the dad who rescued his young daughter from a burning building to the dad who donated part of his liver to save his son’s life, these fathers deserve a big round of applause for heroic deeds that protected their children.
The dad who gave his son a liver transplant
Brittany Munn, who lives in upstate New York, knew her son was sick from the time he was born, but doctors couldn’t figure out what was wrong at first. They eventually discovered Caleb had the rare and serious biliary atresia, and said he needed a liver transplant if he was to survive past the age of 2.
Luckily, his father was a perfect match. As soon as Brian Munn found out he could donate part of his liver to make his son healthy, he jumped at the opportunity. Father and son now have matching scars from their March 2015 surgeries, and Caleb will continue to require treatment. But for now, he is much healthier, and his dad is glad he could do what was needed to help.
“Once I [knew] that he was OK, and he was on the other side of the surgery,” Brian Munn told WBNG Binghamton, “I knew that it was all worth it.”
The dad who saved his daughter from a kidnapper
Aaron Edson could have been named negotiator of the year for saving his daughter from an apparent kidnapper. Edson and his wife Stephanie awoke in the middle of the night in their home near Salt Lake City in November 2014 to discover their 5-year-old daughter missing from her bed. Edson, panicked, soon found her outside in the arms of a stranger who had broken into the house. When he asked the man what he was doing with the little girl, the burglar replied that he was in danger and wouldn’t be harmed if he had a child with him.
“I said, ‘Really, I want to help you but she has got to stay,’” Edson told Good Morning America. “I just walked up to him and held out my arm and he just handed her over peacefully and calmly, and no one’s voice ever got raised.”
In the end, all was well for little Lainey, and the would-be kidnapper was arrested.
The dad whose first aid training saved his own son
When Ray Adams got CPR training, he didn’t expect to have to use it the same day—and on his own son. Shortly after receiving the CPR training, the youth football coach was watching his 11-year-old son RayShawn play in a scrimmage in Hartford, Conn. in August 2014, when RayShawn was knocked over and seemed to be struggling to breathe. Adams started performing chest compressions and blowing into his son’s mouth, until RayShawn gasped in air and began breathing again.
Adams now says he hopes all coaches get the same training to be able to step in when tragedy strikes.
The dad who saved his baby from a burning building
Throwing your baby out the window may not sound like a heroic act, but in the case of Liam Crocket, it was exactly that.
When his home in East Kilbride, Scotland caught fire in November 2014, Crocket acted fast. “The floor began to cave in so I grabbed Lilly, put a blanket over her and held her tight to my chest,” he told the Daily Record. “I knew we had to go out the window. Luckily, there were people outside so I flung Lilly down into someone’s arms. Once she was safe, I jumped.”
Mother Sarah MacKenzie was away from the house when the fire broke out, and was very grateful for Crocket’s heroic rescue of their 1-year-old.
“It was his quick thinking that saved our baby’s life,” she told the Daily Record.
The dad who fought a bear to save his son
Greg Alexander awoke while camping in Great Smoky Mountains National Park in early June to the sound of his teenage son’s screams. A bear had attacked the 16-year-old, Gabriel, in his sleep, and Alexander saw the bear “dragging him across the ground by his head,” according to the Citizen-Times. Worried that he might already be too late to save his son, Alexander jumped on the bear’s back, hit it in the face and threw rocks at it until it finally let go and went away.
The two had to hike several miles to safety, and though Gabriel’s scalp and facial injuries were serious, he is expected to make a full recovery—all thanks to his dad’s bravery in the face of a beast.
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