From Hidden Brain Media, I'm Shankar Vedanthin. This is My Unsung Hero, stories where one person reached

out to help another in a time of need.

I would like to thank my unsung hero.

I do not know her name.

And all the sudden I look up and this hand slides two warm chocolate chip cookies across the desk.

To this day, it was one of the nicest things anyone has ever done for me.

Today's story comes from John Westy.

Some 60 years ago when John was two he wandered away

from his house in North Dakota. He was followed by his dog Penny. Penny and I

wandered five or six blocks and there we were crossing the Burlington

Northern Railroad tracks and about five years before that there was a derailment

and they cleaned up all the wreckage but pre-EPA they left the

tar in place and high North Dakota winds later had covered the tar with dust and Penny and I walked across

it on a fairly warm September day and I got stuck in the tar.

A man named Conrad Brown, better known as Sunny, heard Penny barking and rescued John from the tar. Years later, as a young adult, John learned some sad news about the man who had saved his life.

Sunny was a World War II veteran that had PTSD and in the first year of college I learned that he took his life.

And it really made me sad to hear that this outgoing bubbly person inside of him had this pain from serving in World War II that he couldn't relate to.

He had a

a culture where you don't talk about your rough and tumble North Dakota town

had a culture where you don't talk about your inner life

and I just thought if we had a better culture maybe

Sunny would be with us and it affected me I didn't have an outlet either.

...