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After 19 years, man wakes to changed Poland
Man who went into coma under communism finds ‘world is prettier now’

WARSAW, Poland - A railway worker who emerged from a 19-year coma woke to a radically altered Poland and thinks "the world is prettier now" than it was under communism, his wife said Sunday.

Gertruda Grzebska, 63, said that for years she fed her husband Jan carefully with a spoon and moved his body to prevent bed sores.

"For 19 years he did not move or say anything," Grzebska told The Associated Press by phone. "He tried to say things, but it couldn't be understood. Sometimes we pretended we understood."

"Now he spends his days sitting in a wheelchair, and last weekend we took him out for a walk in his wheelchair," she said.

"He was so amazed to see the colorful streets, the goods," she said. "He says the world is prettier now" than it was 19 years ago, when Poland was still under communist rule.

"I could not talk or do anything, now it's much better," Jan Grzebski, 65, told TVN24 Television in a weak but clear voice, lying in bed at his home in the northern city of Dzialdowo.

"I wake up at 7 a.m., and I watch TV," he said, smiling slightly.

Wojciech Pstragowski, a rehabilitation specialist, said Grzebski was shocked at the changes in Poland — especially its stores: "He remembered shelves filled with mustard and vinegar only" under communism. Poland shed communism in 1989 and has developed democracy and a market economy.

‘This is my great reward’
Despite doctors' predictions that he would not live, his wife never gave up hope and took care of him at home.

"I would fly into a rage every time someone would say that people like him should be euthanized, so they don't suffer," she told local daily Gazeta Dzialdowska. "I believed Janek would recover," she said, using an affectionate version of his name.

"This is my great reward for all the care, faith and love," she told the AP, weeping.

"He remembers everything that was going on around him," she said. "He talks about it and remembers the weddings of our children. He had fever around the time of the weddings, so he knew something big was taking place."

Head injuries plus cancer
In 1988, when Poland was still run by a communist government, Grzebski fell into a coma after sustaining head injuries as he was attaching two train carriages. Doctors also found cancer in his brain and said he would not live. Grzebski's wife took him home.

Last October he fell sick with pneumonia and had to be hospitalized again, Grzebska said.

Doctors' efforts led to the first signs of recovery.

"He began to move and his speech was becoming clearer, although I was the only one to understand him," she said.

Intensive rehabilitation brought more effects.

"At the start, his speech was very unclear, now it is improving daily," said Pstragowski, who predicted his patient would soon walk. "I am sure that without the dedication of his wife, the patient would not have reached us in the (good) shape that he did."

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Parking ticket generates generosity  
  
By JORDAN CARLEO-EVANGELIST
Click byline for more stories by writer.
Last updated: 1:03 p.m., Thursday, July 26, 2007

ALBANY - Georgia Childress wept as she opened her mail this morning.
  
"Georgia, you don't know me and I don't know you. I am seeking nothing in return for this gift," the note, post-marked from Coxsackie and paired with a $100 check, began. "Your story ... broke my heart and maddened me to no end."

The writer was referring to the $50 parking ticket that Childress found on her car Monday morning. Childress had planned to donate the car to charity and, because it wouldn't start, left it in the street illegally overnight.

Mindful that city street cleaners would be passing her Lark Street home overnight, Childress - who is in her late 70s - says she swept the sidewalk and street surrounding her stranded 1991 Chevy Cavalier so as not to cause trouble.

She left three notes in her windows telling officers the car would not start.

Childress, the first wife of former Common Councilman Nebraska Brace, said she was donating the car because she could no longer afford the expense.

But the $50 ticket was an added burden until, at the last minute, a man bought the car from her Monday for the cost of the citation. The man, who was standing nearby on Lark Street, offered her $50 for the car as the tow truck from the charity, Heritage for the Blind, pulled up.

Childress had to make a quick decision and sold the car in hopes of offsetting the expense of the ticket.

Several people, including the president of Taft Furniture, John Mulcahy, have since reached out to try to help Childress. Others called the Times Union, which featured her story in Tuesday's paper, to say Childress should not have sold the car to offset the cost of the ticket. The author of the note Childress, a retired typist for the Department of Motor Vehicles, received today made it clear how she felt about Childress' actions:

"You seem like a very kind soul and one who gives and yet asks for nothing in return," the note continued, according to Childress. "If more people thought this way, this world wouldn't be in the mess it is."

The note was not anonymous, but Childress did not want to disclose the name of the writer without asking her first.

"It brought tears to my eyes," she said. "It wasn't really about the money. ... I didn't know people would care like this."

The letter concluded with another offer:

"If you ever need a ride somewhere, my phone number is on the check."

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Rescuer in rowboat followed sound of child’s voice
Sept 5, 2007

Chuck Herndon’s wife yelled at him to take a life jacket, but there wasn’t time for that. A plane had gone down in Lake Erie and there wasn’t anyone else around to help.

Thanks to Herndon’s quick action, 7-year-old Joel Hutchison is alive today.

“I figured I was alright,” Herndon told TODAY co-host Meredith Vieira during an appearance on the program Wednesday. “I’m a good swimmer and it was only about a mile away.”

Herndon, an artist and retired college professor, and his wife had been on the beach of Kelleys Island, a local Lake Erie resort east of Toledo and about 80 miles west of Cleveland.

The couple had watched the lights of an airplane taking off from a small airstrip on the island. Instead of climbing toward the mainland, the lights arced toward the water and disappeared. Herndon didn’t hear an explosion, but his instincts told him something was wrong.

On board the plane, a Cessna 172C Skyhawk, were Jeff Hutchison, 46, a farmer from Lima, Ohio, and his two sons, Jeremy, 9, and Joel. They were heading home on a 90-mile flight after a day on the island.

Herndon sent his wife inside his mother’s home, where they were visiting, and ran to a small, aluminum rowboat. It was about 9:30 p.m., and it was inky black, but Herndon pushed the boat into the water even though he had neither life vest nor a flashlight.

Guessing about the direction in which to row, Herndon told Vieira he initially rowed in the wrong direction. “I got away from the island. it was very quiet at that time. Then I heard a faint cry in the distance – ‘Help!’ I called out, ‘I’m coming, I’m coming. Keep screaming,’ " Herndon said.

He rowed  for nearly 15 minutes toward the voice, which kept calling out every 20 seconds or so. Occasionally, the voice would go silent for what seemed like forever, and Herndon thought he would be too late, but then it would come back.

“All of a sudden, his hands were gripping the rail of the boat,” Herndon said. “To that extent, he saved himself.”

Herndon was amazed that a 7-year-old had been able to stay afloat so long in the chilly waters of the lake after a plane crash. He gathered the boy into the little boat, pulled him close to keep him warm, and set out back to shore.

“He said, ‘My father’s been killed in an airplane crash. My brother’s been killed in an airplane crash. They were very bloody and the plane went down,’ " Herndon said.


God by his side?
As they rowed to shore, Joel talked some more. “The boy asked me if I was a Christian,” Herndon said. “He said he was a Christian. He said that maybe because he was a Christian, that I was there for him to save him.”

Once on shore and tucked into an ambulance that had arrived in response to his wife’s call, Herndon noticed cuts and marks on Joel’s body where his safety belts had been.

“I asked him how he had gotten out,” he told Vieira. “He said his lap belt and shoulder harness had broken. He said the plane had disintegrated and he was able to swim free.”

Some 25 years ago, Herndon had been out on the lake with others when they saw a fishing boat that had improperly anchored with its stern into the waves . “The water came over the stern and the boat sank,” Herndon said.

Acting quickly, he motored to stricken craft and was able to save three of the four people aboard.

Vieira called him a hero, but Herndon shrugged it off.

“Everyone in America could be a hero, too,” he said. “I was just ready.”

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Holiday Hero; Stranger Pays for Woman's Gifts
      Reported by: Jeff Saperstone
Email: jeffsaperstone@fox23news.com
Last Update: 10:16 pm

Now for a remarkable story of generosity. A man pays for a woman's Christmas gifts in line at the Wal-Mart in Latham. The two had never met. The man didn't even stay long enough to give his name. Now that Cohoes woman is calling him an angel for helping her help others this holiday.

Look under her tree and you'd think all these presents were for pat marciano's children. Well, Pat doesn't have childen. Every Christmas she buys toys, clothes and games for families in need.

Marciano said, "Everybody out there needs so much."

This time, it's a family with five girls and two boys who lost their home in Albany and now has very little.

Marciano said, "They don't have a lot, they really don't have a lot. And they wanted name brand stuff."

So Pat, who doesn't have much herself made it a mission to get these kids what they'd never had. One of the girls really wanted a crown.

Marciano said, "Even if I had to take back my cat food I bought last week I was gonna get her this crown."

In the days before Pat was to get the gifts she prayed she could pay for them all. Well it appears her prayers were answered inside a Wal-Mart store in Latham.

Marciano said, "And when the check didn't clear I told her please try again. And she did and it didn't clear. And I told her it wasn't meant to be."

But maybe it was. Pat had no idea the man right behind her in line was about to change everything.

Marciano said, "This gentleman just said, mam I'm going to pay for your Christmas."

Jeanne Plew said, "He handed me the money and said Merry Christmas. JEFF: And that's it? That's it."

Marciano said, "I almost passed out. My knees went weak I almost crumbled, the lady propped me up."

Plew said, "I believe it was a Christmas angel."

That Christmas angel paid for one hundred dollars worth of gifts. Gifts that mean the world to Pat.

Marciano said, "I wanted to say thank you for making they're Christmas because this is the one thing I really wanted to do for these people this year."

In fact he was so generous after he paid for the gifts, he bought the Salvation Army Volunteer outside a hat and gloves.

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Two Dogs Save Toddler from Drowning
12/18/2007

Rottweilers get a bad rap. And the mere mention of a Bull Terrier makes most parents quake in fear, terrified that those brutal beasts might hurt their precious babies.

But despite the horror stories you've heard, don't be scared of the big, bad dogs – we know there've been some terrible incidents with breeds like these, but you can usually chalk that up to the encouragement of their awful owners (see: Michael Vick).

For a touching example of these dogs' true natures, look no further than Queensland, Australia, where a Rottie and a Staffordshire Bull Terrier recently joined forces to save the life of a drowning toddler.

Last week, a two-year-old boy wandered away from his house and into a dam on a nearby property. No one saw the toddler flailing in the water – except, that is, for the two dogs. When the property's owner finally came along, she discovered the little boy lying on the dam's bank, covered in mud. The two dogs lay by his side.

"We are certain the dogs pulled him out of the dam," a police spokesman told The Daily Telegraph. "It is an amazing story."

Thanks to the work of his heroic canine companions, the little boy is doing fine.

So if you happen to be looking for a new dog, you might want to give the prissy Pomeranians a miss. Instead, head over to your local shelter and save the life of a Staffie or a Rottie – he may return the favor one day.

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Family missing for three days rescued as snowstorm hits
BY JULIET WILLIAMS The Associated Press

    PARADISE, Calif. — Lost for three days in the Northern California mountains, Frederick Dominguez and his three children wrote “Help” in the snow, huddled in a culvert for warmth, sang songs and prayed.
    There was no way search crews on the ground were going to find them Wednesday.
    The closest rescuers were two miles away and didn’t know exactly where to look for the missing Christmas tree hunters. One snow-laden storm had covered the family’s tracks, and an even bigger storm was hours away from burying them deeper.
    The weather finally cleared up enough to make air searches possible Wednesday, but only briefly. A California Highway Patrol helicopter passed over the heavily wooded area, flying through a narrow canyon with cloud-covered mountain ridges on each side, but the crew saw nothing at first.
    “We were on our last pass. That was it — the weather was pushing us out,” CHP pilot Steve Ward said.
    Then they saw a man atop a small bridge, wildly waving his arms amid a wilderness of white and gray.
    Snow from the incoming storm was falling when the helicopter set down in 2 feet of powder and plucked the family, wet and shivering, to safety.
    “Our hearts are all full right now,” said Cory Stahl, who closed his pest control business so his employees could help look for Dominguez, an employee. “It’s a very merry Christmas now.”
    The helicopter ferried the Dominguez family to safety in two trips; Alexis, 15, and Joshua, 12, were taken out of the woods first. Their 38-year-old father smiled at cheering family and friends later as he and his 18-yearold son, Christopher, emerged from the aircraft.
    The four were taken to Feather River Hospital in Paradise, where all were doing well — walking, talking and drinking hot chocolate, treating physician Kurt Bower said. He expected them to be released within hours.
    “I’m surprised how good they are,” he said. “There’s a miracle from God in there somewhere.”
    Their ordeal began Sunday, when Dominguez and his three children left church and headed to the mountains about 100 miles north of Sacramento to cut a tree for Christmas.
    Because Frederick Dominguez had custody of his children at the time, his ex-wife did not know they were missing until she discovered that her youngest child failed to show up at school Monday.
    By the time authorities learned they were missing and began their search Monday night, the first storm had dumped 8 inches of snow around the family’s parked pickup truck, obliterating their tracks. The family had been missing about 25 miles northeast of Chico, in the mostly rural north-central region of the state.
    By Wednesday, the storm had dumped more than a foot of snow in the mountains, leaving wind-driven drifts 7 feet high in some areas.
    The family — found less than a mile and a half from the road — said they got lost by going from pine tree to pine tree, trying to find the perfect Christmas tree, before realizing they were lost.
    “My daughter goes, ‘Mom, you know how we are. We get excited, and we see a tree and then we see another tree,’ ” said Lisa Sams, the children’s mother. “They just got lost, and they ended up taking a side road that led them to the opposite direction.”
    Sams said she never lost hope. But inside the hospital where the four were being observed late Wednesday, she said she had been frightened by the nearly continuous snowfall.
    “The storm is what scared me,” Lisa Sams said. “My fear was just them being cold. I couldn’t stand the thought of them being cold and not eating. ... But I had a lot of hope and I just ... I couldn’t think negative. I could only think positive.”
    Wearing jeans, sweat shirts and coats, the family survived by huddling in a culvert beneath a bridge, sheltered from the outside by twigs and tree branches. They had written “help” in the snow with branches.
    The youngest children were pushed deepest into the shelter, with the father and eldest son blocking the wind, Sams recounted after visiting with them at the hospital.
    She said they talked of huddling together, telling jokes and singing songs, to pass the time in the first couple days, before beginning to grow scared and depressed in the last 24 hours.
    They had no food, but found water to drink. Sams said the family did not eat snow because the father remembered reading that it could cause hypothermia.
    Frederick also had taken off his sweat shirt, torn up the fabric and wrapped it around his children’s feet, hoping to stave off frostbite. Alexis’ toes were changing color, Sams said, but Frederick kept rubbing them to try to keep them warm. Color began to return to the girl’s toes in the hospital.

BILL HUSA/CHICO ENTERPRISE-RECORD
Joshua Dominguez, 12, right, is offered a blanket after he and his sister, center, were flown by helicopter to Sterling City, Calif., on Wednesday.

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Dog’s return mends a broken heart
BY JUSTIN MASON Gazette Reporter

    More than 1,000 miles separated Nathan Grier and his best friend, an adoring 2-year-old pit bull affectionately named Booger.
    The 13-year-old sixth-grader tearfully waved goodbye to the dog in September when his parents flew north from Ocala, Fla., in search of a better school system for their two sons. But with help from a determined Scotia-Glenville social worker, a pair of business associates from the Midwest and some luck, Nathan and Booger were reunited on Saturday.
    “It was something that he never imagined,” recalled his mother, Bonnie Grier, on Wednesday. “He never thought he’d see his dog again.”
    The Griers decided to move to Scotia after Nathan — a quiet boy who copes with Attention Defi cit Hyperactivity Disorder — began struggling in the Florida school system. The family spent nearly every dime they had to relocate and lacked enough to bring the pit bull aboard their flight.
    Instead, the Griers found a Florida family to adopt Booger and tried to assure Nathan he would be safe. When the time came to say goodbye, the boy collapsed to his knees and cried.
    “All we could do is say it will be all right,” his mother said.
    But being apart from the pit bull wore on Nathan much more than his parents expected. When he enrolled at Scotia-Glenville Middle School in the fall, social worker Jessica Brennan noticed Nathan’s anxiety over the loss of his friend and decided to do something about it.
    “He was heartbroken,” she said. “Even his mom said that was the one thing she couldn’t do for her son.”
    Brennan scoured the Internet for a way to somehow reunite the boy and his dog and happened upon Pet-Togethers, an Arizonabased animal dietary supplement company that had a record of helping out pet owners in need. On a whim, she sent the company an email explaining Nathan’s situation and asking if there was anything the company could do.
    Her correspondence landed on the desk of company President Mike Fantetti, who was touched by the story of the boy’s bond to his dog. Fantetti then relayed the story to his friend and associate, Bill Marino, the chief operating officer of Bark Busters, a Coloradobased pet training company.
HAD TO DO IT
    “We looked at it and decided we wanted to do whatever was necessary to bring the dog and Nathan back together,” Fantetti said.
    Marino, a cousin of Hall of Fame Miami Dolphins quarterback Dan Marino, had lived in Florida for many years and was acquainted with several services specializing in transporting pets. Fantetti agreed to pay to move the dog and Marino agreed to coordinate the effort.
    “He said ‘Bill, we should just make this happen,’ ” Marino recounted. “I said ‘I’ll do the leg work if you fund it.’ ”
    But what started out as a simple operation was quickly complicated by a blast of wintry December weather. When Marino and Fantetti tried to fly Booger out of Tampa International Airport to Albany before Christmas, they found flight delays throughout the Northeast meant the dog could be left out in the cold for hours.
    “At that point, we thought we were going to need to fly to Florida and drive the dog up ourselves,” Marino said. “But we were going to do it.”
    Ultimately, the two arranged for a van service to pick up Booger, which brought him to a veterinary clinic for an evening for shots, and then funded a special air travel service to ensure he arrived in the Capital Region unharmed and in comfort. When the dog touched down at Albany International Airport Saturday, Fantetti and Marino had arranged for a service to deliver him to the Griers’ apartment, where Booger promptly charged through the door and ran to Nathan’s side.
    “He ran past us just to get to him,” said Steve Grier, the boy’s father. “That’s a boy and his dog right there.”
    For the Griers, the experience gave them renewed faith in the goodness of people. For Nathan, the reunion was the best Christmas present he could expect, even if it was a few days late.
    “Because he’s the best dog in the world,” he said with the dog curled by his legs.

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Fallen window washer beats odds
By DAVID B. CARUSO, Associated Press
First published: Friday, January 4, 2008

NEW YORK -- Doctors say they have never seen anything like it: A window washer who fell 47 stories from the roof of a Manhattan skyscraper is now awake, talking to his family and expected to walk again.
     
Alcides Moreno, 37, plummeted almost 500 feet in a Dec. 7 scaffolding collapse that killed his brother, Edgar Moreno, 30.
Somehow, Moreno -- a father of three from Linden, N.J. -- lived, and doctors at New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center announced Thursday that his recovery has been astonishing.
He has movement in all his limbs. He is breathing on his own. And on Christmas Day, he opened his mouth and spoke for the first time since the accident.
His wife, Rosario Moreno, cried as she thanked the doctors and nurses who kept him alive. "Thank God for the miracle that we had," she said.
Dr. Herbert Pardes, the hospital's president, described Moreno's condition when he arrived for treatment as "a complete disaster." Both legs and his right arm and wrist were broken in several places. He had severe injuries to his chest, his abdomen and his spinal column.
"If you are a believer in miracles, this would be one," said the hospital's chief of surgery, Dr. Philip Barie.
The death rate from a three-story fall is about 50 percent, Barie said. People who fall more than 10 stories almost never survive.