From Hidden Brain Media, I'm Shankar Vedantam.

This is My Unsung Hero, stories where one person reached out to help another in a time of need.

My Unsung Hero was my...

Max saw me, came over and asked how I was doing and if I needed help.

So whoever you are, thank you so much.

Today's story comes from Joanne Moskela.

Joanne has been biking the steep streets of San Francisco since the late 1980s.

One day, around eight years ago, Joanne was biking the mile-long commute from her workplace

to a station of the local subway system known as Bart.

At an intersection, just a block from Bart,

a car quickly veered from the left lane into my lane on the right. I swerved even harder right and was about

to congratulate myself on avoiding a collision, but the car clipped my rear tire. I went down so quickly

I was still gripping the handlebars when my helmet hit the ground. Then my face met the pavement and a big gash opened above one eye.

I didn't lose consciousness.

I hopped up, angrily threw my bike onto the sidewalk, and then I started looking for my

missing glasses.

At that moment, a slim, handsome young man in a furry lavender

bunny suit rolled towards me on his electric unicycle. Are you okay? Can I help you? He said.

Stunned by the impact, I thought to myself, wow, when you die in San Francisco,

you're greeted by a spirit animal. I looked around and said, oh, yes, can you help me retrieve my

eyeglasses? We turned, and there they were in the middle of the intersection. He made a high-pitched

sound of triumph and moved to retrieve them, but as he did so,

...