7-year-old rallies neighbors to help homeless, and more

7-year-old rallies neighbors to help homeless

Over the holidays, when 7-year-old Jonathan Slack saw a destitute woman in Chicago with a sign that said she had no place to live, he was moved to tears—and then to action. He wrote a letter to his community of Orland Park, Ill., asking residents to help the homeless, distributing photocopies around the neighborhood. Within 10 days, Jonathan’s neighbors responded with four trucks of food and toys, which he sent to Chicago’s Su Casa Catholic Worker homeless shelter. “I’d like to think it was divine intervention,” said his mother.

Mother and newborn make a miraculous recovery

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A Colorado Springs mother and her newborn have made a complete recovery following their apparent deaths. Tracy Hermanstorfer was getting ready to deliver her son, Coltyn, on Christmas Eve when she went into cardiac arrest and stopped breathing. After failing to revive her, doctors removed the baby by Caesarean section, but he was limp, with the barest murmur of a heartbeat. Then, as the medical team slowly revived Coltyn, his mother also began to come around, after having had no heartbeat for four minutes. The doctors had no explanation for the double miracle. “I had everything in the world taken from me,” said Tracy’s husband, Mike, “and in an hour and a half I had everything given to me.”

Dog saves boy from cougar attack

Austin Forman, 11, of British Columbia, was gathering firewood in his backyard last week when his dog, Angel, began following him to and from the woodshed, as if keeping watch over him. Suddenly, Angel leaped over the family’s lawn mower and attacked a charging cougar. Austin ran inside, where his mother called the Mounties; when they arrived within minutes, they found the cougar chewing on Angel’s neck and shot it dead. Angel suffered some puncture wounds but is recovering. “She’s more than a best friend,” said Austin. “She’s like my guardian now.”