Everyday heroes: 11 tales of American heroes

- David Clark Scott, Staff, Sara Afzal and Andrew Heining, Contributors

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7. Teens save couple from burning car

On April, 3, a pair of teenage Good Samaritans rescued a couple after their car crashed near Daytona Beach, Fla.

Luke Vaughn and Cody Decker, both 17, are from Michigan, but were in Florida on a spring break trip with their families. At about 1 a.m. on April 3, 2012, the boys were just coming back from returning a rented movie (and a munchies run to Taco Bell). They were having trouble with the key code in the gated community where their families had rented a condo, when Jaguar X-Type sped past.

It "just flies by, I don’t know, 80 miles an hour, so we did a double take to each other—like, people racing in Florida? Is this a common deal? And we’re expecting more people, and they just flew by, then we heard a huge crash," said Luke later.

The boys called 911 and rushed to the scene. The Jaguar had hit two trees and was smoking. The two boys set to work pulling Carlos Adams and Tracy Lopez out of the wreckage. They smashed a couple of windows and pulled on the bent door frame to get the couple out before the car burst into flames. Adams and Lopez were taken to a local hospital, according to the Lansing State Journal in Michigan.

“They stayed calm, acted quickly and removed themselves and the victims from danger,” Flagler County Sheriff Donald Fleming said in a statement.

At a brief ceremony on April 5, Flemming said: “This is an outstanding example of our youth in America today. Seventeen years old, to have that kind of character, to have that kind of courage, to put their own life in jeopardy, I think they need to be commended here today,”

“If this is an example of our generation of young, our future generations are in very good hands,” he added.

Carlos Adams's mother, Emma, told FlaglerLive.com, “We keep calling these guys heroes, and they are heroes, but to us, they were angels and they are angels sent from God."