Three hero-dad stories for Father’s Day

Dad vs Carjacker

It’s every parent’s nightmare to have their vehicle stolen with their children inside the vehicle.

It was the holiday season and a couple with their four young children were dropping off gifts at a friend’s home. The husband and wife had taken the last gift out of the vehicle. The wife asked her husband to shut the back door so the kids would stay warm. Out of nowhere, a man hopped out of a taxi and into their car.

Without hesitation, the father ran to the driver’s door, but the car sped away. The taxi sat empty because the carjacker had also stolen it. The father jumped into the taxi and chased after his vehicle.

At one point, the carjacker turned onto a one-way street going the wrong way. The father followed. Luckily, an oncoming vehicle saw the potential head-on collision and pulled over to the curb. When the carjacker slowed to get around the approaching vehicle, the father rammed his vehicle against a fence.

The carjacker ran away from the car yelling over his shoulder, “sorry.” They found fingerprints on the vehicle. The police hope to catch the carjacker who may also be charged with kidnapping.

When the wife arrived at the scene, she asked the police officer if they’d found her kids. The officer said her husband had.

The humble father said,

“I’m not really a hero, I’m a dad doing dad things.”

Dad vs Coyote

It seems to happen more often, or at least reported in the news more often, that a coyote tries to snatch a small child.

In this story, the father had picked up his two-year-old daughter from school and returned to their home in a residential neighborhood. The father heard the daughter yell and cry. He thought she’d fallen. When he went around the car, he saw his daughter being dragged away be a coyote.

He went at the coyote and threw a water bottle at it. The animal released the girl and ran away. Her parents immediately took her to be checked and treated for rabies.

The family said they’d seen plenty of wildlife in the area, but they usually stayed away from people. The authorities kept the girl’s bloody clothes to pull the coyote’s DNA and sent it in to a lab. They’ll trap the coyotes in the area and check for a DNA match. When they find the right coyote, they will euthanize it.

Dad vs Converted Bus

After years of military life, a couple and their four children were preparing for summer travel in a converted bus.

The husband and wife were outside the bus when their six-year-old daughter exited the bus and said the propane heater was making noises. A moment later, the propane tank exploded. Their four-year-old and twelve-year-old children were still inside the bus.

The father, a former air force officer, ran into the bus that was fully engulfed in flames. He found his children in the back of the bus and dragged them outside—they were in shock.

The three—dad and two children suffered extensive burns requiring skin grafting and months of care.

After the worst was behind them, the father said,

“We are becoming so much stronger as a family and feel deeper degrees of compassion and love.”

Source: WCCO CBS News Minnesota, NBC LA News 4, Daily Star, New York Post