3:11 pm - 02/25/2012
Earlier this week (in 2011), Alex Trebek awoke to find a burglar in his San Francisco hotel room. The game show host chased down the thief, rupturing his Achilles tendon and injuring his leg in the process. Thanks to Trebek's efforts, the suspect was later apprehended. Trebek went on to fulfill his hosting duties at the National Geographic World Championship geography bee later that day. (Ben Hider, Getty Images)
Though he's racked up jail time and multiple felony convictions, rapper T.I. has also done plenty of good. In 2010, he talked a suicidal Atlanta man off the ledge of a 22-story building. Reportedly, the rapper heard about the incident on the radio and immediately drove over to the building to see if he could help. While authorities wouldn't let him on the roof, T.I. used his phone to record a positive video message for the would-be jumper, who climbed back down the ground a short time later.(Ethan Miller, Getty Images)
Tom Cruise played good Samaritan several times in 1996. After witnessing a hit-and-run accident in L.A., he called 911 and stayed with the victim until help arrived. When he found out she had no health insurance, Cruise picked up the $7000 medical bill.
Later that year, Cruise and then-wife Nicole Kidman were on their yacht near Capri when they spotted a boat nearby catch fire and sink. The couple was able to rescue all five people aboard the doomed ship. (Frazer Harrison, Getty Images)
A-list star Jennifer Garner was driving through Los Angeles in 2010 when she spotted stranded motorists on the side of the road. Dressed in sweats, Garner stopped to help the duo, who had run out of gas - making a run to a local gas station and filling the tank herself!
Demi Moore is a 21st century good Samaritan who turned to social media to help out distressed fans. In separate incidents, two of Moore's Twitter followers (she's @mrskutcher) tweeted about their plans to commit suicide. Moore, a very active Twitter user, noticed the messages and alerted the proper authorities. Both fans survived thanks to Moore's attention.
Harrison Ford isn't just Indiana Jones, he's a real-life helicopter pilot with a penchant for saving lives. In 2000, he saved a female hiker who had fallen ill with altitude sickness, stranded atop Idaho's Table Mountain. Then, in 2001, he came to the rescue of a Boy Scout who was lost overnight in Yellowstone National Park. (Jason Merritt, Getty Images)
In 2008, NFL player (and former Cal football star) Tony Gonzalez saved a man's life while out to dinner with family. During the meal, Gonzalez noticed fellow diner Ken Hunter choking on a piece of meat and beginning to turn blue. Gonzalez successfully performed the Heimlich maneuver and saved Hunter's life. Ironically, the choking victim was a die-hard Chargers fan - the major NFL rival of Gonzalez's team, the Kansas City Chiefs.
oh lawd
In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, Sean Penn did more than just contribute money to relief funds. The actor traveled to New Orleans and drove a motorboat around the flooded streets, personally rescuing nearly 40 people from their ruined homes and transporting them to land for medical care. (Valerie Macon, Getty Images)
Country star Garth Brooks is also a good Samaritan. In 2000, during a visit with family in Oklahoma, Brooks helped evacuate homes that were in the path of a raging grass fire. The singer used his pickup truck to drive residents out of harm's way. (Kevin Winter, Getty Images For AFI)
SOURCE
what are your good samaritan (whether it was you or someone else helping you out)stories, ontd? When I was sixteen and had just gotten my license, some jerk hit me and drove off. A guy saw what happened, chased the jerk in his car, forced the jerk to come back to the scene, waited with me till my dad got there so I wouldn't be by myself with the jerk, and then snuck away before me, my dad, or the police could properly thank him :( <3
9 Stories of Celebs Being Good Samaritans (we need a positive post, imo!)
Earlier this week (in 2011), Alex Trebek awoke to find a burglar in his San Francisco hotel room. The game show host chased down the thief, rupturing his Achilles tendon and injuring his leg in the process. Thanks to Trebek's efforts, the suspect was later apprehended. Trebek went on to fulfill his hosting duties at the National Geographic World Championship geography bee later that day. (Ben Hider, Getty Images)
Though he's racked up jail time and multiple felony convictions, rapper T.I. has also done plenty of good. In 2010, he talked a suicidal Atlanta man off the ledge of a 22-story building. Reportedly, the rapper heard about the incident on the radio and immediately drove over to the building to see if he could help. While authorities wouldn't let him on the roof, T.I. used his phone to record a positive video message for the would-be jumper, who climbed back down the ground a short time later.(Ethan Miller, Getty Images)
Tom Cruise played good Samaritan several times in 1996. After witnessing a hit-and-run accident in L.A., he called 911 and stayed with the victim until help arrived. When he found out she had no health insurance, Cruise picked up the $7000 medical bill.
Later that year, Cruise and then-wife Nicole Kidman were on their yacht near Capri when they spotted a boat nearby catch fire and sink. The couple was able to rescue all five people aboard the doomed ship. (Frazer Harrison, Getty Images)
A-list star Jennifer Garner was driving through Los Angeles in 2010 when she spotted stranded motorists on the side of the road. Dressed in sweats, Garner stopped to help the duo, who had run out of gas - making a run to a local gas station and filling the tank herself!
Demi Moore is a 21st century good Samaritan who turned to social media to help out distressed fans. In separate incidents, two of Moore's Twitter followers (she's @mrskutcher) tweeted about their plans to commit suicide. Moore, a very active Twitter user, noticed the messages and alerted the proper authorities. Both fans survived thanks to Moore's attention.
Harrison Ford isn't just Indiana Jones, he's a real-life helicopter pilot with a penchant for saving lives. In 2000, he saved a female hiker who had fallen ill with altitude sickness, stranded atop Idaho's Table Mountain. Then, in 2001, he came to the rescue of a Boy Scout who was lost overnight in Yellowstone National Park. (Jason Merritt, Getty Images)
In 2008, NFL player (and former Cal football star) Tony Gonzalez saved a man's life while out to dinner with family. During the meal, Gonzalez noticed fellow diner Ken Hunter choking on a piece of meat and beginning to turn blue. Gonzalez successfully performed the Heimlich maneuver and saved Hunter's life. Ironically, the choking victim was a die-hard Chargers fan - the major NFL rival of Gonzalez's team, the Kansas City Chiefs.
oh lawd
In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, Sean Penn did more than just contribute money to relief funds. The actor traveled to New Orleans and drove a motorboat around the flooded streets, personally rescuing nearly 40 people from their ruined homes and transporting them to land for medical care. (Valerie Macon, Getty Images)
Country star Garth Brooks is also a good Samaritan. In 2000, during a visit with family in Oklahoma, Brooks helped evacuate homes that were in the path of a raging grass fire. The singer used his pickup truck to drive residents out of harm's way. (Kevin Winter, Getty Images For AFI)
SOURCE
what are your good samaritan (whether it was you or someone else helping you out)stories, ontd? When I was sixteen and had just gotten my license, some jerk hit me and drove off. A guy saw what happened, chased the jerk in his car, forced the jerk to come back to the scene, waited with me till my dad got there so I wouldn't be by myself with the jerk, and then snuck away before me, my dad, or the police could properly thank him :( <3
Edited at 2012-02-25 11:24 pm (UTC)
lmao i love him now
then yell BOOYEAH if i get it and they don't
my favourites are always the super nerdy people, and the people who have the most unenthusiastic, monotone voices and sound like they hate their lives
"shit...def about to die, harrison ford is here, this is insane..."
it's the thought that counts tho imo
from 2006
HOWARD STERN declared himself a "good Samaritan" yesterday - saying he felt a duty to help cops grab the screaming, spitting madman who accosted the shock jock and his girlfriend on a Manhattan street. Speaking out on the incident, first reported in yesterday's Daily News, Stern told his listeners his girlfriend Beth Ostrosky wanted him to stay with her Saturday night after they escaped the ranting lunatic who hocked a "big loogie" in her face. But Stern said he decided to go help cops capture the assailant to protect New Yorkers. "She wanted me to just stay there with her, but I said, 'No, this guy's dangerous,' " the Sirius satellite radio personality said. "You can't let this guy stay on the street.
" A rattled Stern called cops, who picked him up and drove him around the upper West Side looking for the attacker. With New York's Finest backing him up, Stern himself searched the inside of a nearby building where three men were hanging out, but he didn't recognize them. "We got back in the car and they pulled over a guy on the street," the radio host recalled. "I said, 'Yeah, that's the guy!
' and to be sure I called Beth, who came over to take a look at the guy, and it was him.
" The homeless ex-con, Gregory Forbes, 50, allegedly charged at Stern about 8 p.
m. as the couple strolled home on Columbus Ave. after dinner - getting within inches of the radio gabber's face and screaming, "Howard!
" Forbes got enraged as the couple tried to scurry away near W. 62nd St., and he raised his fists to Ostrosky, yelling in her face, Stern said. "I told her to go on ahead, run, go home, leave, just go, and I'll deal with this. She said, 'No! Let's just go faster,' but I knew it was something I had to deal with," Stern told his fans. Following the couple for two blocks, Forbes mumbled some more threats as Ostrosky jumped in a taxi and begged her longhaired beau to follow, Stern said. "This guy comes over to the cab like he's trying to jump through the window," Stern recalled. "And [then], he spat in her face - into her mouth, her face and her eyes. . . . She's freaking out.
" Stern, 52, escorted Ostrosky home to their luxury high-rise before setting out with cops. "I did what any good Samaritan would do," he said. "After Beth was okay, I felt obligated to find him, because he could do something to someone else.
" Forbes, who last lived at a Hamilton Heights boardinghouse, was hit with menacing and harassment charges. He was being held on $500 bail. Ostrosky was all smiles yesterday before bringing her British bulldog, Bianca Romijn-Stamos, to get prepped for a dog fashion show. Dressed in jeans and sneakers, the leggy blond said getting spit on was "gross.
Your story is really sweet OP.
Edited at 2012-02-25 11:21 pm (UTC)
Zoe salandara stayed with a car accident victim
Cuba Gooding JR stopped the bleeding of a shooting victim
MY good samaritian stories, a guy needed some bus fare and he looked really hopeless, so the first thing i pulled out was 10 dollars and i gave it to hime because i thought it would be rude to do so(yes i'm stupid but i think it brightened his day)
Also when i was 5 a biker went through the back windshield of my familys parked car. His head was bleeding and i remember running into our apartments bathroom and getting him a towel to stop the bleeding
In general i always try to help people, if they drop something i pick it up for them
My dad tried to get his info from the police so we could thank him, but they wouldn't give it to us :(
I’m willing to go out on a limb here and guess that most stories of kindness do not begin with drug addicted celebrity bad boys.
Mine does.
His name is Robert Downey Jr.
You’ve probably heard of him. You may or may not be a fan, but I am, and I was in the early 90’s when this story takes place.
It was at a garden party for the ACLU of Southern California. My stepmother was the executive director, which is why I was in attendance without having to pay the $150 fee. It’s not that I don’t support the ACLU, it’s that I was barely twenty and had no money to speak of.
I was escorting my grandmother. There isn’t enough room in this essay to explain to you everything she was, I would need volumes, so for the sake of brevity I will tell you that she was beautiful even in her eighties, vain as the day is long, and whip smart, though her particular sort of intelligence did not encompass recognizing young celebrities.
I pointed out Robert Downey Jr. to her when he arrived, in a gorgeous cream-colored linen suit, with Sarah Jessica Parker on his arm. My grandmother shrugged, far more interested in piling her paper plate with various unidentifiable cheeses cut into cubes. He wasn’t Carey Grant or Gregory Peck. What did she care?
The afternoon’s main honoree was Ron Kovic, whose story of his time in the Vietnam War that had left him confined to a wheelchair had recently been immortalized in the Oliver Stone film Born on the Fourth of July.
I mention the wheelchair because it played an unwitting role in what happened next.
We made our way to our folding chairs in the garden with our paper plates and cubed cheeses and we watched my stepmother give one of her eloquent speeches and a plea for donations, and there must have been a few other people who spoke but I can’t remember who, and then Ron Kovic took the podium, and he was mesmerizing, and when it was all over we stood up to leave, and my grandmother tripped.
We’d been sitting in the front row (nepotism has its privileges) and when she tripped she fell smack into the wheelchair ramp that provided Ron Kovic with access to the stage. I didn’t know that wheelchair ramps have sharp edges, but they do, at least this one did, and it sliced her shin right open.
The volume of blood was staggering.
I’d like to be able to tell you that I raced into action; that I quickly took control of the situation, tending to my grandmother and calling for the ambulance that was so obviously needed, but I didn’t. I sat down and put my head between my knees because I thought I was going to faint. Did I mention the blood?
Luckily, somebody did take control of the situation, and that person was Robert Downey Jr.
He told her not to worry. He told her it would be alright. He knew, instinctively, how to speak to her, how to distract her, how to play to her vanity. He held onto her calf and he whistled. He told her how stunning her legs were.
She said to him, to my humiliation: “My granddaughter tells me you’re a famous actor but I’ve never heard of you.”
He stayed with her until the ambulance came and then he walked alongside the stretcher holding her hand and telling her she was breaking his heart by leaving the party so early, just as they were getting to know each other. He waved to her as they closed the doors. “Don’t forget to call me, Silvia,” he said. “We’ll do lunch.”
He was a movie star, after all.
Believe it or not, I hurried into the ambulance without saying a word. I was too embarrassed and too shy to thank him.
We all have things we wish we’d said. Moments we’d like to return to and do differently. Rarely do we get that chance to make up for those times that words failed us. But I did. Many years later.
I should mention here that when Robert Downey Jr. was in prison for being a drug addict (which strikes me as absurd and cruel, but that’s the topic for a different essay), I thought of writing to him. Of reminding him of that day when he was humanity personified. When he was the best of what we each can be. When he was the kindest of strangers.
But I didn’t.
Some fifteen years after that garden party, ten years after my grandmother had died and five since he’d been released from prison, I saw him in a restaurant.
I grew up in Los Angeles where celebrity sightings are commonplace and where I was raised to respect people’s privacy and never bother someone while they’re out having a meal, but on this day I decided to abandon the code of the native Angeleno, and my own shyness, and I approached his table.
I said to him, “I don’t have any idea if you remember this…” and I told him the story.
He remembered.
“I just wanted to thank you,” I said. “And I wanted to tell you that it was simply the kindest act I’ve ever witnessed.”
He stood up and he took both of my hands in his and he looked into my eyes and he said, “You have absolutely no idea how much I needed to hear that today.”
And man, I saw an old lady take a bad stumble at our theatre once and I was shocked at the amount of blood in that case too. I could only imagine how this girl must have felt seeing all of that come from her grandma.