Best of Philly

The RoboLancers

That would be Central High’s robotics club, which returned from the FIRST robotics world championship in Houston in April as, ahem, world champions. Tens of thousands of cheering observers packed the arena to see the RoboLancers, decked out in lobster hats, demonstrate their crustacean-themed entry, Leonardo da Pinchy, and wow the judges. “It was through our strategy and brains that we were able to beat them,” club president Lily Sands said of the 600-strong competition field. Way to claw your way to the top! Read More »

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Michelle Lombardi

When Lombardi, an ICU nurse at Phoenixville Hospital, learned that one of her patients — an unhoused man who’d been living with his dog in his car — would be hospitalized for a lengthy stay, she volunteered to take in his pup for the duration, and cared for it until the owner was back on his feet and in an apartment of his own. Her above-and-beyond earned her an award from the Daisy Foundation, a nationwide org honoring extraordinary nurses — and the everlasting gratitude of the man and his beast. Read More »

Kobe the Husky

The next time you’re scolding your pup for digging up your yard, think twice. That’s exactly how four-year-old Kobe saved Germantown. Owner Chanell Bell had had a gas leak in her house, so when Kobe went to work in her front yard and refused to desist, she tested the air, then called the gas company, which found leaks there and in two neighboring pipes. The heroic husky was celebrated the world over, with articles everywhere from People to the Washington Post to the Guardian, not to mention TV appearances and a kids book by Bell celebrating his feat. “It’s amazing to know Kobe saved our block,” she says. Read More »

Dave Torres

It’s not the kind of delivery the North Philly tow-truck driver normally makes, but while en route to visit his daughter, he saw Latasha James frantically flagging down motorists and stopped. She wasn’t having car trouble; she had just given birth. He pulled over, called 911, and, taking his lead from the voice on the phone, helped ensure her baby boy was safe until an ambulance arrived. Then he took care of James’s car while mother and son were in the hospital. Read More »

Vincent Basile

Vincent Basile, a member of the Cara Liom Wench Brigade — and, not incidentally, an Einstein emergency-room doc — was in his strutting garb at the Linc for the Eagles’ New Year’s Day game when he and another attendee, nurse Natalie Spencer, saw a crowd surrounding a man who’d fallen in the stands. They made their way to the guy, found no pulse, and delivered CPR till paramedics arrived. “The first thing I had to do was convince everyone I was a doctor,” Basile said of the emergency. Read More »

Adam Bodzin

Jefferson transplant surgeon Adam Bodzin had a patient on the table, waiting for a liver. But the delivery driver bringing it from New York City couldn’t get through Center City streets blocked off for the Dietz & Watson half-marathon last November. So Bodzin donned his sneaks along with his scrubs — literally — ­and ran half a mile through the race to fetch the balky organ from the stranded driver, who “felt terrible,” Bodzin told the Inky. The cops gave him a ride back to the O.R. We wonder what the delivery tip is for that. Read More »

Maeve Sherry’s Rush-Hour Birth

Well, really the only good thing to happen in a Tesla. With their three-year-old son Rafa in the back seat, Wayne residents Keating and Yiran Sherry were driving to Paoli Hospital one morning last September when they hit rush-hour traffic just as very-pregnant Yiran’s labor contractions sped up. Luckily, they drive a Tesla, so Keating switched on the autopilot and comforted his wife while she gave birth to daughter Maeve (her job as a yoga instructor helped with the breathing) and Rafa demanded, “Is Mommy okay?” “Our hope for this was that it was going to be a natural birth,” Keating said afterward. “Never in our wildest dreams would we expect it to happen in the front seat of our car.” Read More »