There are stories of heroism all the time; firefighters and rescue personnel place their lives in risk on a regular basis. But everyday folks aren't expected to be heroic, so when they are, it's all the more amazing and impressive. Here are three that graced the pages of The Wake Weekly in the 1980s.
In February 1981 Bessie Holden rescued three small children from their beds in a Sunday night fire in Forestville. Louise Ferrell was burned over 35 percent of her body later that year after running back into a burning Massey apartment at least twice to look for her 4-year-old grandson (who was safely elsewhere).
And in September 1988 23-year-old Wake Forest resident and former school bus driver Richard Stallings (pictured above, with nephew Dion) safely saved fellow passengers guiding a Greyhound bus he was riding away from a tree after the bus driver suffered a fatal heart attack. The bus had been traveling 60 mph on Interstate 85 in Virginia when Stallings noticed the driver's arm fall to the side as if he were asleep. A wreck at those speeds could have injured or killed all of the 25 passengers aboard the bus. "I think he did a brave thing," his sister Valerie said at the time. "I'm proud of him for what he did."
It's a good story to recall in the midst of a divisive presidential race, don't you think?
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