upworthy

heroes

Joey Grundl, Milwaukee pizza guy.

Editor's Note: This story discusses suicide. If you are having thoughts about taking your own life, or know of anyone who is in need of help, the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline is a United States-based suicide prevention network of over 200+ crisis centers that provides 24/7 service via a toll-free hotline with the number 9-8-8. It is available to anyone in suicidal crisis or emotional distress.

Joey Grundl, who was working as a pizza delivery driver for a Domino's Pizza in Waldo, Wisconsin, was hailed as a hero for noticing a kidnapped woman's subtle cry for help. It's a timeless story that continues to resonate with people today. In 2018, the deliveryman was sent to a woman's house to deliver a pie when her ex-boyfriend, Dean Hoffmann, opened the door. Grundl looked over his shoulder and saw a middle-aged woman with a black eye standing behind Hoffmann. She appeared to be mouthing the words: "Call the police."

"I showed up, it was a normal delivery, and saw this middle-aged couple," Grundl, 24, told NBC News. "I gave him his pizza, and then I noticed behind him was his girlfriend," Grundl told WITI Milwaukee. "She pointed to a black eye that was quite visible. She mouthed the words, 'Call the police.'" When Grundl got back to his delivery car, he called the police. When the police arrived at the home, Hoffmann tried to block the door, but eventually let the police into the woman's home.


dean hoffmann, wisconsin, mugshot, pizza guy, joey grundl, Dean Hoffmann's mugshot.via WITI Milwaukee

After seeing the battered woman, Hoffmann was arrested, and she was taken to the hospital for her wounds. Earlier in the day, Hoffmann arrived at the house without her permission and tried to convince her to get back into a relationship with him. He then punched her in the face and hog-tied her with a vacuum power cord.

"If you love me, you will let me go," she pleaded, but he reportedly replied, "You know I can't do that." He also threatened to shoot both of them with a .22 caliber firearm he kept in his car. The woman later told authorities that she feared for her life.


- YouTubewww.youtube.com

A day later, Grundl was seen on TV telling his heroic story, wearing a hoodie from Taylor Swift's "Reputation Tour" and her fans quickly jumped into action, tagging Swift in photos of the hero. Grundl already had tickets to go to an upcoming Swift concert in Arlington, Wisconsin, but when Swift learned of the story, she arranged to meet Grundl backstage and they took a photo together.

"She … she knew who I was," Grundl jokingly tweeted after the concert. "I'm thoroughly convinced Taylor gave me a cold."

"This has been one of the most exciting weeks of my life," Grundl said. "I'm legitimately getting emotional and I almost never get like this. But as the likely most memorable week of my entire life comes to an end … I guess I can really say … I'm doing better than I ever was."

- YouTubewww.youtube.com


Hoffmann was found guilty of kidnapping, suffocating, harming, and intimidating his girlfriend and was sentenced to 28 years in prison. It was his first criminal charge. During the trial, his victim told the jury that she was "deathly afraid" of Hoffmann. In 2023, after being transferred to Waupun Correctional Institute in Wisconsin, Hoffmann died by suicide after 9 days in solitary confinement. Hoffman has a history of bipolar disorder and suicidal ideation, and his death has raised questions over whether the facility was equipped to deal with severe mental health issues.

This story originally appeared six years ago.

Security camera footage shows the young child rescuing his friend

In 2020 at a residence in Itaperuna, a city north of Rio de Janeiro, Henrique, a three-year-old child of a worker on the property, snuck away from his parents' supervision and wandered over to the pool. Security camera footage shows the young boy and fellow three-year-old, Arthur de Oliveira, sitting next to the pool when Henrique reaches for an inflatable floaty and falls into the water.

A frantic Arthur looks around for help, but there is no one to be found. For 10 seconds, Henqriue struggles to keep his head above water, until Arthur bravely extends his hand and pulls the boy up. If Arthur didn't have the strength, he could have fallen in the pool and both boys could have died.

Luckily, Arthur's strength held up and he pulled the boy to safety.

"This video serves as an alert for those who have a pool at home and children," wrote Arthur's mom, Poliana Console de Oliveira on her Facebook page.


"Thank God the ending is happy, because God sent the land under my care, my son, my little Arthur, a true hero! Real life hero, my pride."

"Arthur saved his friend's life," she added.

Arthur hopes to be a police officer one day, so after the local police department learned of his bravery, it sent him a new basketball and a whole lot of candy.

Well done, Arthur.


This article originally appeared five years ago.

Joy

Australian plasma donor with rare antibody praised for saving 2.4 million babies' lives

James Harrison took a needle to the arm 1,173 times with no compensation—a real-life superhero.

Plasma donations save lives.

Some people never donate blood due to medical conditions or a fear of needles. Others consent to be jabbed on occasion in order to replenish the life-saving blood and plasma supply at hospitals. Among people who donate blood in the U.S., the average frequency is about twice a year.

So imagine someone donating blood or plasma twice a month, every month, for 64 years, without fail.

From 1954 to 2018, an Australian man named James Harrison donated his blood every two weeks, never missing an appointment, according to Australian Red Cross Lifeblood. After receiving a blood transfusion himself during a major surgery on his lungs at age 14, Harrison vowed to become a donor. He made good on that promise from age 18 to age 81, having his blood drawn 1,173 times over more than six decades.

All blood donations are valuable, of course, but Harrison's plasma was particularly valuable because it carried the rare anti-D antibody. Discovered in the 1960s, anti-D immunoglobulin is used to treat pregnant mothers with Rh-negative blood, which can cause rhesus disease in a fetus with blood incompatibility. The anti-D antibody prevents rhesus disease—also known as haemolytic disease of the fetus and newborn (HDFN)—and it literally saves lives, as more than half of babies who develop the disease die from it. It's estimated that Harrison's anti-D-rich plasma saved the lives of 2.4 million babies in Australia during his lifetime.

Harrison held the world record for the most plasma donated by an individual from 2005 to 2022, and he was dubbed "The Man with the Golden Arm" in his home country. Despite earning multiple accolades and awards for his consistent donations over the decades, including In the Medal of the Order of Australia, one of the country's highest civilian honors, Harrison always stayed humble about his contributions.

"Some people say, 'Oh, you're a hero,'" Harrison told NPR in 2015. "But I'm in a safe room, donating blood. They give me a cup of coffee and something to nibble on. And then I just go on my way. … No problem, no hardship."

In the United States, people are usually paid for plasma donations with amounts ranging from $30 to $70 per donation. But Australia doesn't pay blood or plasma donors, so Harrison's donations were pure giving. Harrison's daughter, Tracey Mellowship, said her father was "very proud to have saved so many lives, without any cost or pain," his daughter, Tracey Mellowship, told the BBC. "He always said it does not hurt, and the life you save could be your own."

Harrison had already been a consistent blood donor for about a decade when the anti-D antibody was discovered and he found out he had the rare combination of RhD-negative blood and Rh+ antibodies, which made him an ideal plasma donor. He happily switched over to donating plasma—a similar process to giving blood, but quite a bit more time consuming, as the blood runs through a special machine to remove the plasma before being injected back into the donor. He wanted this blood to do the most good.

Blood Donate GIF by US_HHSGiphy

Lifeblood told NPR that more than 3 million doses of anti-D containing Harrison's blood have been issued to Australian mothers since 1967, including Harrison's own daughter. "As an anti-D recipient myself, he has left behind a family that may not have existed without his precious donations," Mellowship said in a statement. "It made him happy to hear about the many families like ours, who existed because of his kindness."

Harrison only stopped giving plasma at age 81 because he had aged out—Australia doesn't allow blood donations past age 81. he expressed sadness upon giving his final donation in 2018. "I'd keep on going if they let me," he told theSydney Morning Herald.

He lived another seven years, passing away in March of 2025. Lifeblood is working with an Australian research institute to create a way to continue using Harrison's anti-D antibodies long after his passing in a project they call "James in a Jar."

"Using the blood of James and other donors, the team has successfully recreated and grown his antibody in the lab — with the hope it will one day help prevent [HDFN], not just for pregnant women in Australia, but also worldwide," Lifeblood told NPR.

We often think of heroes as people who risk their own lives to save another, but selflessly donating time and blood throughout an entire lifetime to save millions of babies is no less heroic than deeds that make for dramatic headlines. Perhaps we might all consider donating blood or plasma in honor of Harrison's extraordinary commitment. The need is always there, and you never know how many lives you might save.

Heroes

Instacart delivery driver trusted her gut instinct and ended up saving a customer's life

"You're supposed to take a picture and leave, and I could not just leave."

Jessica Higgs had a sense that something wasn't right at a customer's house and her action saved his life.

One the more mysterious aspects of being human is our sense of intuition. This "sixth sense" isn't something we can see or measure, but many people have experienced it in some form or fashion. Maybe it comes as a strong feeling that something isn't right, or that we or someone else should or shouldn't do something. It can be hard to read—not every feeling we get is truly our intuition—but there are plenty of examples of people trusting their instincts and being glad they did.

One such story has gone viral on TikTok. Jessica Higgs, a mom who works as an Instacart grocery delivery person, shared a story in an emotional video that illustrates the importance of listening to that inner voice when it prompts you to make sure someone is OK.

"I just want to start this off by saying if you see something, say something," Higgs said.

Animated GIFGiphy

She explained how she had done an Instacart order the previous day for a daughter who was ordering for her older dad who couldn't shop for himself. She said she was going the extra mile like she always does for her customers, and that the daughter told her to just drop the groceries on the porch and he'd get them. That's what Higgs would usually do.

"I get there and something was telling me no, you gotta help this man out," she said. "He came out, and I was like OK let me help you, and I got the groceries. You're not supposed to go into someone's house, but I used my judgment and I brought the groceries inside and put them down wherever he wanted me to put them down. You're not supposed to, but I did. And you're supposed to just take a picture and leave, and I could not just leave."



@jessicahiggs3

@Instacart #28DaysOfEucerin #fyp



Higgs noticed that the man looked really sick and she was really concerned. A voice in her head said, "You gotta say something. You gotta say something, Jess." Rather than mark the order as complete, she messaged the man's daughter and told her that it was really unprofessional to say something like this, but she felt like her dad wasn't doing well. "There's a propane tank in there," she told the woman. "I was in there maybe five feet and I got dizzy. There's got to be a leak. He might not be doing good because of this leak."

The woman said she would send her son over to check it out and Higgs left. The woman changed her tip from $14 to $100, which Higgs appreciated, but the message she sent her the next morning was a much greater reward for her going the extra mile.

"Thank you so much, once my son went to check on my dad it turned out it was definitely leaking," she wrote. "You definitely saved my dad and my younger son's life!!!"

Through tears, Higgs said, "I'm just an Instacart worker, but if you see something, say something. I did and I'm so happy I did."

Higgs' TikTok has been viewed more than 15 million times and has been shared widely on social media. It has also attracted the attention of big companies.

Royal Caribbean Cruises shared a TikTok video of its own praising Higgs for her heroic act and offering her and her family a seven-day cruise anywhere in the world. "Cause even heroes need a vacation," the company wrote.



@royalcaribbean

Stitch with @jessicahiggs3 - cause even heroes need a vacation. Thanks @captaincruiseguy



Old Navy connected with her and arranged a shopping spree where she got to model several new outfits. People Magazine commented, "You’re literally a HERO! Good job trusting your instincts. 💕" Even TikTok itself wrote, "You are amazing ❤️thank you for sharing this with all of us."

Lots of commenters also pointed out that she's not "just an Instacart worker." Her work is important, she's providing a needed service and any job done in a spirit of helping others should not be minimized. If she hadn't been there doing her job well, that man may not be here. Never underestimate the difference each of us can make by the simple act of looking out for one another, friend and stranger alike.

Higgs' heartfelt story touched millions, and she's being rightly rewarded for listening to her heart and going out of her way to help someone. Gotta love seeing good things come to people doing good. Well done, Jessica Higgs.

This article originally appeared three years ago.