My grandfather detected a fire at his nursing home once. Despite not being able to walk well, he managed to pull the fire-emergency handle to prompt an evacuation and a response from the fire-department.

Unfortunately, the reason Grandma had to send him to the nursing home was because he was going senile and would always wake her in the middle of the night saying he smelled a fire.

/by "detected a fire once" I mean "about a half-dozen times." God bless that nursing home staff.

Love the story, and impaler's too, but whenever I see these stories, I always think of the Onion and crack up.

Hero Firefighter: 'I'm A Hero' (pops)

"I saved this child," he said. "I am Yahweh, Giver Of Life."

rikdanger: I always think of the Onion and crack up.

I thought I was about to see a link to Existentialist Firefighter Delays 3 Deaths.

Wouldn't that be heroine?

(I smell toast reference here.)

When people who do something courageous and self-abnegating say "I'm not a hero(ine)." they should be disregarded unless they are shifty-eyed and nervous. That's what they all say.

If they do claim to be a hero, check to see how the fire started, etc., just in case. Maybe they really aren't a hero after all. There are plenty of people who become addicted to adulation or who never get enough and thus try to force the facts into a conveniently self-promoting story.

Otherwise, I wish that people wouldn't be sloppy with the word "hero". It should be reserved for acts of courage with some moral or physical risk to the person in question. Pulling a fire alarm is not an act of heroism, although it may save property and lives. No risk, no heroism. If you had a phobia about cats but nonetheless carried a cat out of building you thought (wrongly) was on fire, you are a sort of hero, on the other hand. It took real courage to be useless in that way. You had to overcome (irrational) terror and fight against your instincts of self-preservation and, at the very least, a possible cat allergy or irrational bogey-men.

A lot of true heroism triumphs quietly and in obscurity, while a lot of blind luck, stupidity and even terror are rewarded with the label hero. The fool who runs into battle is no more heroic than the fool who runs from it, but he might win the day and form a suitable post to pin a medal on if nobody else turns up in time to claim a decisive contribution to victory.

I'm rather of the same (deviously myth-busting) mind as Sir Terry Pratchett and his Discworld and other fictional characters: heroism is often a misnomer, and the real thing, like any other virtue, seldom goes entirely unpunished.

Heroism is all about stories. In the real world there is no "try" and no story, there is only do or do not, as the wise man said. Pterry is as wise as an Zen Master from the peaks of any major mountain range in this respect. Distrust stories, but do what you do do well, with all your heart and all your soul, as you should love the Lord and your fellow man.