This obscure London memorial is filled with heart-wrenching tales of everyday heroism.
Tucked away in a small park in London is a wall of plaques dedicated to acts of everyday heroism.
In Postman's Park, nestled among Japanese musa basjoos and dove trees, is a gallery with many small tiles lining a 50-foot brick wall.
It's called the Memorial to Heroic Self-Sacrifice, and the 54 plaques each commemorate the brave acts of men, women, and children who perished trying to save others' lives.
Victorian sculptor George Frederic Watts first proposed the idea for the memorial in a letter to The Times for Queen Victoria’s Jubilee in 1887.
"The character of a nation as a people of great deeds is one, it appears to me, that should never be lost sight of," Watts wrote in his letter.
George Frederic Watts. Photo via Wikimedia Commons.
According to the Everyday Heroes of Postmans' Park, Watts combed through newspapers for decades searching for small stories about ordinary people who sacrificed their own lives to save others.
Plaques are displayed along a memorial wall in Postman's Park. Photo by Dan Kitwood/Getty Images.
Eventually, the wall came to life in 1900 in a stunning and emotional display of selfless acts.
A general view of Postman's Park. Photo by Dan Kitwood/Getty Images.
The memorial was designed to be as simple as possible so as not to detract from the great deeds recorded upon it.
The austere wooden gallery was designed by Sir Ernest George.
And some of the beautiful blue-and-white tile plaques were designed by famed tile designer William de Morgan.
Photo by Dan Kitwood/Getty Images.
In his letter, Watts said he was partly inspired by the story of Alice Ayres, who saved three children's lives by pushing a feather bed out a second floor window of a home that was on fire and tossing the children to safety. Tragically, she fell during her escape and died at the hospital.
Ayres' story became the first plaque of the memorial.
Photo by Jez Nicholson/Flickr.
The ages of those memorialized range from 8 to 61 years old.
Henry Bristow, the youngest person on wall, died saving his sister’s life from a fire in 1890.
Photo by Dan Kitwood/Getty Images.
And each story is astonishing.
Like Mary Rogers, a stewardess who gave up her life belt to save another person when her ship, the Stella, sank.
Photo by Dan Kitwood/Getty Images.
In 1884, Samuel Rabbeth, a doctor, willingly risked his life to try and save a child from diphtheria. Ultimately, he succumbed to the disease along with the boy.
Photo by Dan Kitwood/Getty Images.
In total, the wall commemorates 61 lives lost during the Victorian era.
They are a humbling reminder of the risks, perils, and dangers society faces everyday and the people who bravely step up to protect others.
We need these shining examples of selflessness, heroism, and self-sacrifice to remind us of the humanity in the world.
Photo by Dan Kitwood/Getty Images.
Watts wrote in his 1887 letter that "the material prosperity of a nation is not an abiding possession; the deeds of its people are."
After Watts death in 1904, his wife Mary continued the project until 1929 when interest in the memorial subsided.
A new plaque was installed in 2009, though, to honor Leigh Pitt, a man who drowned in 2007 while saving 9-year-old Harley Bagnall-Taylor in Gallions Lake.
It was the first plaque to be added in over 80 years.
Though society, culture, and technology has changed significantly since Watts proposed the idea for this memorial 129 years ago, the need for shining examples of everyday heroism has not.
In recent years, there has been no shortage of heroic deeds performed by the average person across the globe. We are constantly reminded through the news, our Facebook feeds, and through Twitter that people are sacrificing their lives to help others.
But where is their memorial?
Who do you know who deserves to be memorialized in a public monument for the sacrifice to save innocent lives?
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An Irish woman went to the doctor for a routine eye exam. She left with bright neon green eyes.
It's not easy seeing green.
Did she get superpowers?
Going to the eye doctor can be a hassle and a pain. It's not just the routine issues and inconveniences that come along when making a doctor appointment, but sometimes the various devices being used to check your eyes' health feel invasive and uncomfortable. But at least at the end of the appointment, most of us don't look like we're turning into The Incredible Hulk. That wasn't the case for one Irish woman.
Photographer Margerita B. Wargola was just going in for a routine eye exam at the hospital but ended up leaving with her eyes a shocking, bright neon green.
At the doctor's office, the nurse practitioner was prepping Wargola for a test with a machine that Wargola had experienced before. Before the test started, Wargola presumed the nurse had dropped some saline into her eyes, as they were feeling dry. After she blinked, everything went yellow.
Wargola and the nurse initially panicked. Neither knew what was going on as Wargola suddenly had yellow vision and radioactive-looking green eyes. After the initial shock, both realized the issue: the nurse forgot to ask Wargola to remove her contact lenses before putting contrast drops in her eyes for the exam. Wargola and the nurse quickly removed the lenses from her eyes and washed them thoroughly with saline. Fortunately, Wargola's eyes were unharmed. Unfortunately, her contacts were permanently stained and she didn't bring a spare pair.
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Since she has poor vision, Wargola was forced to drive herself home after the eye exam wearing the neon-green contact lenses that make her look like a member of the Green Lantern Corps. She couldn't help but laugh at her predicament and recorded a video explaining it all on social media. Since then, her video has sparked a couple Reddit threads and collected a bunch of comments on Instagram:
“But the REAL question is: do you now have X-Ray vision?”
“You can just say you're a superhero.”
“I would make a few stops on the way home just to freak some people out!”
“I would have lived it up! Grab a coffee, do grocery shopping, walk around a shopping center.”
“This one would pair well with that girl who ate something with turmeric with her invisalign on and walked around Paris smiling at people with seemingly BRIGHT YELLOW TEETH.”
“I would save those for fancy special occasions! WOW!”
“Every time I'd stop I'd turn slowly and stare at the person in the car next to me.”
“Keep them. Tell people what to do. They’ll do your bidding.”
In a follow-up Instagram video, Wargola showed her followers that she was safe at home with normal eyes, showing that the damaged contact lenses were so stained that they turned the saline solution in her contacts case into a bright Gatorade yellow. She wasn't mad at the nurse and, in fact, plans on keeping the lenses to wear on St. Patrick's Day or some other special occasion.
While no harm was done and a good laugh was had, it's still best for doctors, nurses, and patients alike to double-check and ask or tell if contact lenses are being worn before each eye test. If not, there might be more than ultra-green eyes to worry about.