One of my favorite books is Larissa MacFarquhar’s Strangers Drowning: Impossible Idealism, Drastic Choices, and the Urge to Help. The book is, in part, a study of people who take altruism so seriously it starts to look almost alien to the rest of us — the kind of people who donate to others the money they “should” be saving for themselves, who give the time they “should” be spending, who risk the personal safety they “should” be prioritizing. The book’s implicit question hangs in the air: Why do some of us treat helping as a side hobby at best, while others treat it as a life’s work — even when it could cost them their own lives?
The daily news cycle, with its bias toward negativity, seems to have its own implicit question: How bad can people be? It’s an easy story to tell, because outrage quickly spreads across the social media landscape. But, if you pay attention — really pay attention — another story keeps surfacing, stubbornly, in the margins: the stories of people who run toward danger. They don’t workshop it. They don’t calculate odds. They don’t ask if they’re the “right person” to do something. They just move, on instinct, because someone else’s life is suddenly in front of them.
These stories deserve at least as much of our attention as the darker ones — not because they’re sentimental, or because they cancel out evil, but because they tell the other half of the truth about what it means to be human.
So, I thought the best way to close out 2025 for Good News would be to highlight just a handful of the many extreme altruists who put their lives on the line to save others. Most of them are ordinary people, no different than you or I, who suddenly found themselves thrust into extraordinary circumstances.
It’s impossible to read their stories without wondering, “Would I do the same thing in the same moment?” There’s no way to know, but each of us can make the decision, every day, to do what we can to make the lives of those around us a little better. That’s one intention I’ll take into the new year.
1) Ahmed al Ahmed
When gunmen opened fire at the “Chanukah by the Sea” event at Bondi Beach on December 14, Ahmed al Ahmed didn’t look for escape; video shows him duck behind a parked car, then sprint at a shooter, wrestle the gun away, and hold the attacker at gunpoint without firing. He was shot and has been recovering in the hospital after a complex operation involving nerve damage, with another lengthy surgery scheduled. New South Wales Premier Chris Minns called him “a genuine hero,” saying he had “no doubt” many people were alive because of Ahmed’s bravery. From his hospital bed, Ahmed — who came to Australia from Syria in 2006 — put it simply: He acted “from the heart.”
2) Scott Ruskan
Scott Ruskan, a Coast Guard rescue swimmer on his first official mission, helped coordinate the evacuation of 165 people at Camp Mystic during catastrophic flooding in central Texas in early July. Ruskan said the flight that normally takes about an hour stretched to seven or eight because of severe weather — “some of the worst flying we’ve ever dealt with.” On the ground, he realized he was the only first responder on scene, facing roughly 200 terrified kids and staff. It was up to him to triage and organize helicopter evacuations. Ruskan downplayed the hero label, saying, “I just happened to be on the duty crew,” and “the real heroes…were the kids on the ground.”
3) Giovanna Hanley
After a small plane crashed into a tree in a Pembroke Pines neighborhood in July, the wreckage erupted in flames. Giovanna Hanley and neighbors ran toward it. Hanley told ABC News, “One [person] brought over an ax. … Someone even brought over a fire extinguisher.” While other neighbors used hoses, her father-in-law used the ax to break the window as they worked to clear a path to pull people out. All four passengers were rescued and hospitalized. The mayor later called the neighbors’ actions “nothing short of heroic.”
4) Fousseynou Cissé
When toxic smoke trapped families in a top-floor apartment in northern Paris in July, Fousseynou Cissé climbed out a window and balanced on a narrow ledge connecting two apartments — about 65 feet above the drop — to help evacuate children and babies. The media reported that mothers handed children through a window, and Cissé passed them along to safety in the adjacent apartment before helping the mothers cross. His explanation was refreshingly uncinematic: “It wasn’t calculated; it was instinct: ‘We’ve got to go.’” Paris police chief Laurent Nuñez said he would award Cissé a medal “in recognition of his courage and dedication,” calling it an example of “republican courage.”
5) Ray McKie
On August 20, Metropolitan Transit Authority conductor Ray McKie heard screams at Queensboro Plaza in New York and saw what no one wants to see: “a train coming in,” as he said later, and “a person…lying on the tracks.” In heavy rain that made the platform slippery, he ran to signal the train to stop, then jumped down and picked up the unconscious 14-year-old who had fainted and hit his head. He helped another passenger off the track and then stayed with the injured teen until emergency responders arrived. The teen recovered. McKie later described it as pure reflex: “It all happened very fast, and I just went on instinct.”
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