42 Odd And Unsettling World Facts That Might Keep You Up At Night

He collapsed. They could have run. They saved his life instead. On June 12, 2017, six inmates in Polk County, Georgia, were mowing and doing maintenance at a cemetery. Their supervising deputy was with them, as he was five days a week. It was a hot, humid day, and the deputy, who has a chronic medical condition, started coughing and hyperventilating. Then he went down. Think about what those six men were looking at: an unconscious armed guard, a gun belt, and a work van. Nobody was watching them. Not one of them ran. They opened his shirt, took off his bulletproof vest and gun belt so he could breathe, and got ready to start CPR. One of them grabbed the deputy's phone and called 911. Then they stayed with him until help arrived. The deputy never stopped breathing and made a full recovery. Afterward he said, "None of my guys ran." Sheriff Johnny Moats said, "They could have taken the gun, got the work van and gone." His response was to cut about one-fourth off each man's sentence. The sheriff's office also threw them a pizza lunch in the park, and the deputy's family baked desserts to say thank you. The timing made it even more striking. Just days earlier, two Georgia inmates had escaped a prison bus and shot two corrections officers. The sheriff's office wrote on Facebook that they all knew "Monday could have ended differently" for their officer, and that they were "very proud" of all six men. The sheriff also credited his deputies for how they treat inmates: "They treat them like people." Six men in a very bad place made a choice that mattered more than any sentence.