Incredible tales of how dolphins have saved humans

Many different kinds of animals can be trained to help humans. You have probably heard of service dogs who lead people who are blind, or dogs that search for bombs or missing people. There are even ponies, birds, and rats that are trained to save human lives. But you may not have heard that dolphins can save humans, too. And dolphins are different: Unlike all these other animals, dolphins save human lives in the wild. They aren’t trained. People didn’t teach them what to do. The dolphins do it all by themselves!

What?!

Yes, it’s true. Dolphins save people on their own, without being trained. There are many stories of people who almost drowned or very nearly got eaten by sharks before a dolphin or pod of dolphins (that’s what a group of dolphins who travel together is called) came and saved them. These stories go back as far as the ancient Greeks. Don’t believe me? For a while, a lot of people didn’t believe these stories were true. After all, the Greeks had a lot of mythological stories that were entirely made up. Today, however, there are many accounts of dolphins saving humans — with witnesses to prove it. Dolphins save human beings, and they do it without any training at all.

1700s

One of the first accounts we have of dolphins saving people was way back in the 1700s when Vietnam was invaded by China. The Chinese sank a whole ship of Vietnamese sailors. Obviously, they had planned to kill them. But there was a pod of dolphins nearby who came to their rescue and saved their lives .

1996

A man named Martin Richardson was swimming in the Red Sea (you know, the Yam Suf), when a shark attacked him. He felt a shark take a bite out of his side and then another one out of his upper arm. You would think he’d be as good as dead by then, but instead, three dolphins circled him and scared off the shark! Even after the shark was gone, the dolphins stayed near Mr. Richardson until his friends came to rescue him. Mr. Richardson might have already been wounded, but his life was saved — by dolphins!

2000

A young boy and his father were out on a boating trip near Italy when the boy, Davide, fell out of the boat and into the water. His father didn’t notice he was gone until he turned to see a dolphin pushing Davide toward him. The dolphin brought Davide close enough that his father could grab him and bring him back into the boat. It was a good thing, too, because Davide couldn’t swim. If not for that dolphin, he would have drowned.