Holding out for a hero? (pt 1)
Could use one right now, eh?
Greetings from sunny Los Angeles, where everything is very cool and NORMAL.
I don’t remember where I first learned about the Carnegie Hero Fund. A podcast, probably. It’s a program started by Andrew Carnegie that sends American and Canadian civilians who have risked their lives to save others a check for $5500 and a medallion. That’s it. That’s all it does. No fancy gala and no strings attached. Read all about it here.
It is self-evident that this is nice. It’s nice that once upon a time a rich person had a thought to do something good for humanity. It’s nice that it’s still going. It’s nice that people risk their lives for others and it’s nice that they get rewarded for it. Look for the helpers and all that.
But what’s relevant to me, here in 2025, is that the Carnegie Hero Fund has compiled their many decades of heroics into a searchable database that a person could spend many hours going through…and I did! My plan was to present my top five stories of heroism in this newsletter, ideally quirky/inspiring tales about overcoming the odds etc etc. The opposite of the Darwin Awards (remember those?).
The problem is that a lot of the entries are depressing. Either the person doing the heroics died, or they were a hero but they person they were trying to rescue still died. I did find out that there have been six people who were so heroic they won this thing twice, so don’t you dare say humanity’s no good.
Also, the past is weird, full of gas leaks and cave collapses, and the present is full of mass shooters. Determined to bring factual but still rousing content to your inboxes, I pivoted and looked into the most recent class of Carnegie Heroes. After eliminating anyone working for the government in any capacity and anyone who died in the effort, I was left with some almost-drownings, fire rescues and non-fatal stabbings. Heroic, to be sure, but not the strain of good mood distraction we aim to provide here on LLiaG.
…but then I struck gold. One man. One story.
This. This! THIS IS WHAT I WANTED. His entry on the website, in full (emphasis mine):
“Cary Daniel Sullivent rescued his wife, Tabatha Sullivent, from an attacking shark, South Padre Island, Texas, July 4, 2024. Tabatha was wading in three feet of water about 150 feet from shore in the Gulf of Mexico when a bull shark estimated at 8 feet long and weighing 400 pounds bit off her left calf. She pushed the shark away with her hands and, bleeding badly, swam and waded towards shore while yelling for help. Sullivent, 49, construction company owner, was sitting on the beach when he saw his wife in distress and sprinted into the surf to grab her. As bystanders ran into the water to help, he began pulling her towards the beach. He had pulled her about 30 feet when the shark reappeared a few feet away and attacked again. Sullivent released his wife and told a friend to grab her, then turned around and dived onto the shark, landing a punch on its gill and driving it away. The shark had bitten off most of Tabatha’s calf and she underwent surgeries and physical therapy to regain the partial use of her leg. Sullivent suffered a gash below his right knee, a gash on his right foot and a puncture wound on his right calf. He recovered.”
Get you a man who will punch a shark on your behalf.
Next week, I continue my hunt for something that will make me feel OKish about the state of the world, and I find it! Predictable Spoiler: it’s a cat.
Optimistically,
Lizzie