Fisherman endures 5-mile swim swim to shore
Andrew Wilson, a 25-year-old Australian fisherman, was thrown from his boat by a large wave nearly 5 miles from shore. With his boat motoring away, Wilson braved shark-infested waters off the coast of New South Wales without a life jacket. It took “adrenaline and just sheer determination,” Wilson said, because if he’d relented, the rough current would have pushed him out to sea. “I wasn’t going to stop, so I just kept going,” said Wilson, who suffered only minor injuries. “Miracles do happen,” said Carmel Jones, a local rescuer. “Lucky he was a strong swimmer.”
An honest and truthful cabdriver
After getting out of a taxi and watching it speed off, New Yorker John James realized he had left a bag containing $100,000 worth of jewelry and cash in the back seat. “I thought that it was the end of the world,” James said. Luckily, he still had a taxi receipt, and he was able to track down the driver. Zubiru Jalloh, a cabdriver from Brooklyn, had found the bag and kept it safe until it was claimed. “This is my job—to be honest and truthful to people,” Jalloh said. “That’s exactly what my religion told me.” Jalloh reluctantly accepted a $1,000 reward.
Mr. Rooter recovers a wedding ring
Valentine’s Day had a rocky start for Kristen Kalis of Cranberry, Pa., who accidentally flushed her $10,000 wedding ring down the toilet. After she called several plumbers who said a search was hopeless, Steve Cirigliano from Mr. Rooter agreed to give it a try. He used a Shop-Vac to empty the sewage trap outside the house and, after three hours of searching through waste, found the ring. “She started hugging me, telling me she loved me, that I was her best friend,” said Cirigliano. Said Kalis: “Between God and Mr. Rooter, my prayers were answered.”