Never underestimate the power of children as one quick-thinking 9-year-old boy recently demonstrated. This is a child you want around during a crisis. The Marin County, California boy is credited with saving the life of his father who had been injured in a snowmobiling accident near Lake Tahoe on Sunday.

J.T. Bierdneau was trapped when his snowmobile pinned him on Sunday. Severely injured in the crash, he was unable to extricate himself. His son, Bode Bierdnaeu, tried to dig him out of the deep snow on his own but was unable to do it alone. Though he tried, his own fingers became numb from the cold. The child realized the only thing he could do was go for help. He was nervous and unsure about trekking alone for miles across the snow, in part because he was unsure of which direction to go.

He had no cell phone reception but didn’t panic. He stayed calm throughout the ordeal, finally locating help with an emergency radio. The tour group he found radioed for help. Once that was taken care of, he was able to lead the rescue party to his father. Bode’s mom said the search and rescue officials called the boy’s efforts heroic.

J.T. was airlifted to the hospital and underwent emergency surgery on his leg, which was broken. He is expected to make a full recovery, thanks to Bodes quick thinking and nerves of steel.

Lucas Irwin decided he’d had enough of being overweight and in 2013 set out to shed some of his 300 pounds. He kept his efforts a secret from his family for the entire year and surprised them when he came for the holidays at fit and trim weight of 170.

The big moment was captured on video and has been going viral on YouTube. Irwin hid upstairs until his parents entered the house. Then he came down stairs to gasps and excited exclamations as they laid eyes on the new Lucas.

In an interview with Today, Lucas said he only goes home to visit once or twice each year. He made an excuse for missing the summer visit so his family wouldn’t see how far he’d come already. Even though he’d achieved his goal, he felt jittery waiting for the moment of the big reveal. He described the moment as surreal and said he was shaking throughout it.

His parents, Jeff and Susan Irwin, were overjoyed to see him looking so healthy. Jeff said he was just stunned when he saw his son but on the inside was beaming with pride. Lucas’ stepmom, Susan was moved to tears by what he had accomplished.

Irwin, 25, lost 130 pounds by sticking with a strict eating regimen and changing his diet. He kept a food diary to hold himself accountable and wrote down everything he ate for the entire year. He says 95% of the weight loss came from simply making changes in his diet. He waited until 7 or 8 months into his jour4ney before he started exercising.

Because he was keeping his efforts a secret from his family, he couldn’t turn to them for support. Instead, he relied on the Internet and social media. He especially lauded the Reddit community “Lose It’ where he was able to post about his progress and find tips and other dieting help.

He has struggled with his weight his entire life and on Dec. 28, 2012, made a pledge to himself to make a change. Experts in weight loss Irwin’s method of keeping it to himself was a good one. Statistics show that when you make up your mind to do it for yourself, success rates are much higher than when you rely on others to hold you accountable.

This is great news all round, but some of you may find yourselves crying when you watch the video.

Dawn Keim suffered from a condition which sadly resulted in her losing her hearing. After 15 years, she was fitted with a cochlear implant (November last year). What you see in the video is her about to hear her youngest son’s voice for the first time. He’s aged eight.

She’s nervous, naturally, worried she might not hear him. But then he enters the room, calling out to her, “hey Mum, can you hear me?” and she does! She looks so excited, laughing and replying, “yes”, to him.

Then he runs up to her. They hug. They cry. She kisses him. Holds him. She says, “Now you can talk to me. I can hear you”. He replies, “I love you”. She says, “I love you too”.

Beautiful tender touching moment captured between mother and son. Just beautiful.

A single-engine Cessna plane was forced to crash land on water leaving a 77 year old man and his adult son stranded. With little time to respond, the U.S. Coast Guard pulled of a dramatic rescue minutes before the plane went under.

Chris Courtney, a 14 year veteran of piloting rescue missions claimed he had only ever responded to one other downed aircraft call in his career and that one did not end well. It was the third mission Courtney had flown that day. He and the rest of his rescue team had little time to plan how they were going to achieve the rescue. They had a 45 minute flight to reach the plane’s location which was roughly 30 miles away from Big Sur.

When they arrived, father and son were atop the plane. The team hoisted the father before rescuing the son. According to Courtney, as they lifted the son off of the aircraft, it rolled to its left and submerged. Had they been even a couple of minutes later in arriving, the outcome of this mission might have been very different. It’s conceivable that the two men could have died out there.

Courtney said they literally had less than three minutes to rescue the two men. He knew adrenaline was pumping through his and his team’s veins this time out.

The rescue was successful in part because the father and son had gone to the trouble of installing a 406 Electronic Position Indicating Radio Beacon (EPIRB), a GPS locating device on the aircraft. It allows the pilot to send a signal to a satellite used to coordinate rescue attempts. The signal contains information about the beacon’s owner, a phone number to call and data about the aircraft. Without that information, the Coast Guard may not have been able to locate the pair as quickly as they did. Courtney says it your best chance to survive if you are ever on a vessel that is in distress.

Following an exhibition game in the Philippines, Dennis Rodman, former NBA star and notorious wild man, greeted the father he has been estranged form for 42 years. The pair last met in 1969.

Philander Rodman Jr. has been trying to meet his famous son for years. His last attempt I n 2006 occurred when the younger Rodman was in Manila for a different exhibition game. This time he scored a victory.

The elder Rodman has been living in the Philippines for more than 50years and has admitted fathering 29 children by 16 women. He hoped to have time to explain to Dennis that he never abandoned him but the two only spent a few minutes together after the game.

With just seconds left in the game, Dennis Rodman took the microphone and publicly acknowledged his father, pointing him out in the stands. There was a huge sheer when 71 year old Philander stood, wearing a red baseball cap that proclaimed “Yes, Dennis Rodman is my son.”

Afterward, the two shook hands, something they had never done before and exchanged greetings as Dennis signed autographs. Philander said he felt it was the beginning of something new.

Philander passed along his phone number and Dennis promised to call. The meeting marked a momentous change in their relationship as six years earlier; Dennis would not even speak to his father. Today Dennis says he doesn’t hate the man but would call him a friend.

The elder Rodman will return to his business, the Rodman’s Rainbow Obamaburger restaurant in northern Angeles City. He can return to work a happy man.

“I didn’t think that God made people like her anymore”, says Marshall Smith, the father of the kindergarten student whose teacher donated one of her kidneys to.

Choking up, Marshall expresses his joy at being given another chance at life as well as a chance to be there for his 5-year-old boy, Sean.

Her name is Mrs Marie Bell. And she’s an angel.

She first found out about Marshall’s condition when his son was late to school. There was a note from Sean’s mother explaining why: they’d been to hospital because of his dad. She then learnt he’d been on dialysis for two years.

Mrs Bell’s gut instinct was to help. And that she did. She tested and found she was an exact match for Marshall.

The transplant took place very recently - this week in fact – and was successful. Both are said to be doing fine.

“How can I look at that little boy, look in his eyes every day — greet him every day as his teacher, as his caregiver, as his educator and as a mother and know that I didn’t try?”

What more is there to say to that? A selfless act. A beautiful act. An act of utter kindness and love.

Just last week a small church in the town of Greenwood Indiana was broken into; in the process the thieves stole dozens of musical instruments including one that had special sentimental value to many members of the church. That particular instrument belong to the pastor’s son who died in a car crash 4 months ago so it is not surprising that they felt so bad after the guitar was stolen.

Fortunately today the thieves apparently heard to story and felt bad about what had been done. Upon arriving at the church Pastor Schmidt found the guitar abandoned in the alley way right next to the church. Pastor Schmidt says it is nothing other than a miracle from good hearted people who have apparently made some poor decisions in their lives.

Obviously the thieves were not captured in the process but Schmidt says he is grateful that they decided to return the guitar with so much sentimental value to them. The search for the thieves is still on going but for the time being Pastor Schmidt and the entire congregation are happy that his son’s guitar has been returned.

It isn’t every day that groups of thieves hear heartwarming stories like the one from Pastor Schmidt but he claims that his prayers must have been a major influence. Whatever the reason he his simply glad to finally have back a piece of his son’s memory as it is one of the last things he has to remind him of his late son’s life.