11-year-old steers car to safety, and more

11-year-old steers car to safety

When Dana Encapera blacked out while driving to the mall in Uniontown, Pa., she was lucky to have her coolheaded daughter Sage, 11, along for the ride. Sage quickly checked her mother’s pulse, then seized the wheel and steered the car off the road before it veered into oncoming traffic. “I didn’t want to crash into anybody else,” explained Sage, “so I hurried up and grabbed it.” Dana, who had suffered a seizure, said of her daughter: “She saved my life, she saved her life, and she saved other people’s lives.”

85-year-old crosses Atlantic on a raft

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At the age of 85, Anthony Smith finally realized his childhood dream of crossing the Atlantic Ocean on a raft. The Londoner led a four-member team on a 2,800-mile journey from the Canary Islands to St. Maarten on a 40-foot sail-powered vessel fashioned of gas and water pipes. It took them 66 days. “Some people say it was mad,” said Smith. “But what else do you do when you get on in years?” Besides proving the capacity of the elderly for adventure, Smith’s venture raised cash for a water charity.

17-year-old saved by baggy pants

Kendrick Williams, a 17-year-old from St. Petersburg, Fla., says his baggy trousers kept him from getting chomped on by an alligator last week. As he walked by a large pond on the way home from work, he heard a strange hissing sound. “I looked down and I seen the alligator on the ground,” said Williams. “I ran. I didn’t look back.” The gator snapped at Williams’s upper leg but ended up with only a snout-full of pants. Said his mom, Tanita Murray: “That was the advantage of wearing baggy pants that day.”