Posted 11:43 pm Saturday, December 15, 2012
Send to Kindle
Syrian boy’s selfless act of courage inspiring
By REBECCA HOEFFNER
rhoeffner@tylerpaper.com
CNN had exclusive footage Thursday of a story that has stayed with me. It’s of a boy in Syria who risked his life to save a woman he didn’t know.
rhoeffner@tylerpaper.com
CNN had exclusive footage Thursday of a story that has stayed with me. It’s of a boy in Syria who risked his life to save a woman he didn’t know.
Syria’s civil war has been going on so long, it seems to be fading out of the American consciousness (mine included, unfortunately). But tragedies are happening every day in the country.
The woman and her son were walking down a street they didn’t know was being targeted by snipers. Rebel fighters tried to warn them, but it was too late. The woman was shot and collapsed in the street.
The boy, 17, thought she might still be alive. As the camera rolls, we watch with baited breath as he slithered to her side, staying as low to the ground as he could to avoid drawing the snipers’ attention. When he reached her body, she raises her hand, slowly, shakily.
She was still alive.
The boy works fast to secure a rope around her so he and his friends can pull her to safety. It’s too dangerous to try and carry her. While he’s with her, snipers shoot at him and his friends cover him with return fire.
When CNN interviewed him later, he said he told himself, “If I die, it’s God’s will that I die next to this woman.”
Finally, he runs back to safety. His friends pull the woman in.
“I’m not a hero, I’m just like anyone else,” he said. Until recently, he worked at a bakery. Now he risks his life every day, like thousands of young Syrians.
I don’t know if I would risk my life for a stranger. I would like to be made of that kind of love, the greatest kind of love there is.
The story doesn’t have a happy ending.
The boy, 17, thought she might still be alive. As the camera rolls, we watch with baited breath as he slithered to her side, staying as low to the ground as he could to avoid drawing the snipers’ attention. When he reached her body, she raises her hand, slowly, shakily.
She was still alive.
The boy works fast to secure a rope around her so he and his friends can pull her to safety. It’s too dangerous to try and carry her. While he’s with her, snipers shoot at him and his friends cover him with return fire.
When CNN interviewed him later, he said he told himself, “If I die, it’s God’s will that I die next to this woman.”
Finally, he runs back to safety. His friends pull the woman in.
“I’m not a hero, I’m just like anyone else,” he said. Until recently, he worked at a bakery. Now he risks his life every day, like thousands of young Syrians.
I don’t know if I would risk my life for a stranger. I would like to be made of that kind of love, the greatest kind of love there is.
The story doesn’t have a happy ending.
The woman died, and he is left wondering if she could have lived if he’d gotten to her sooner.
The images of her son crying and shouting over her body are almost unbearable.
I don’t know enough about the situation in Syria to know if or how the United States should be involved.
I do know there are people of prayer on both sides of the political aisle.
I do know Syria needs those prayers.
The images of her son crying and shouting over her body are almost unbearable.
I don’t know enough about the situation in Syria to know if or how the United States should be involved.
I do know there are people of prayer on both sides of the political aisle.
I do know Syria needs those prayers.
