From Hidden Brain Media, I'm Shankarvedantam. This is My Unsung Hero,

stories where one person reached out to help another in a time of need.

My unsung hero story is from a doctor I heard over 30 years ago.

He's not a hero because he rarely got any recognition for his huge heart and his unselfish actions.

You mean the world to me and I can't thank you enough.

Today's story comes from Ben Gomes.

Some years ago, Ben received a call at work.

His 92-year-old mother, Thomasina, was being rushed to the hospital. The caller told Ben his mother had

been dragged by a car and was injured. He raced to the hospital. I have to admit I

was terrified of what might have happened to her. I feared that she might have been really severely injured.

She is an old lady and quite fragile to begin with.

So the notion that she might be dragged by a car was just completely horrifying to me.

And it seems that what had happened was that, you know, she used to get a ride from volunteer drivers who take her to the senior center.

And the driver had dropped her off and she was wearing this jacket that had long pull strings at the bottom

of the jacket and as she closed the door one of the pull strings from the jacket got caught in the door. And so the car started driving away and

she started running alongside the car, knocking on the door on the window of the car to try

and get the driver's attention.

And he can't be driving and she couldn't either extract the jacket string, nor could she

stop the car. And at that point it seems like somebody saw her from

across the street and ran across the street, got in front of the car and banged on the hood of the car to stop the driver.

And she fell at this point, and I guess that's what caused it to break a hip.

You know, a broken hip is no joke, but I'm so incredibly grateful that I was not greeted by the

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