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The Santa Anita Paddock

This is a reminder that real heroes are writ large and small. It is not always premeditated, sometimes the moment demands action and heroes are made on the spot. Such an event happened last month, ninety year-old Bill Shear demonstrated, that when it comes to heroism, age does not matter either.

According to Bill Plasche of the Los Angeles Times, it was an early Saturday afternoon at Santa Anita racetrack in Arcadia, California. Mr. Shear, in his 50th year working at the track, was supervising the paddock guards, making sure the huge horses don't harm the gawking fans. Three of those fans were a father and his two young children, Dad was holding his youngest in his arms while his six year-old daughter was holding on to his hand.

Suddenly, the shout, "Loose horse!!!" went up and a more 1,000 pound three year-old named Sea and Sage reared, gave a scream and began running toward the one section of paddock fence that had been replaced by a rope. That rope was held by Mr. Bill Shear. People scattered as panic took hold, the girl's dad said, "I reached for her and she was gone...then I saw her standing by herself with the horse coming at her."

Mr. Shear measures all of five feet tall and weighs in at 110 pounds, but he knew what to do. Shear jumped in front of the horse pushing the tiny six year-old girl out of the way just as the charging animal trampled him to the ground. The girl immediately stood up and shouted to her father that she was fine, then she saw Mr. Shear lying there bleeding, and began screaming.

Her father told the LA Times, aware that his daughter was small for her age, that he had taken her to the track to see the jockeys, "I wanted her to see that you could do great things no matter how big you were." He got a much more intimate illustration than that.

Today Mr. Shear is in a hospital with a multiple pelvic fractures, a fractured cheekbone, and gashes above his left eye and down his left arm, hoping he will walk again in a couple of months.

"I've already lived most of my life, the little girl has her entire life in front of her," Shear said. "There's no question I would do it again."

"When I heard about the accident, the first thing I thought was that my father was in the wrong place at the right time," said Mike, his only son. "Then I thought about it and realized, you know, he was in the right place at the right time."

Read the whole story here and remember you might be sitting, standing or talking to such a hero right now. In fact, in the moment, at the time, you too, might be that hero.

Labels: Pop Culture, thought