Birdie: By Gale and Richard Harris, for their grateful response to the heroic -- if ultimately unsuccessful -- effort that a pair of Moore County men made to resuscitate their 85-year-old father, Thomas Harris, after he collapsed from a heart attack last month on a downtown Southern Pines street.

While Andy Austin applied CPR, Anthony Parks ran a block to the town's administrative office to get an automatic external defibrillator (AED), one of a growing number being made available around the county through the efforts of the HeartSafe Moore program. Though Mr. Harris eventually died, the efforts of Austin and Parks helped make it possible to keep him alive long enough for his son and daughter to rush from their homes up North to his side at Moore Regional Hospital.

Out of gratitude, they now plan to make a donation to HeartSafe Moore to purchase another AED for the downtown area. Thanks, Gail and Richard. We hope your grief is tempered by the knowledge that your thoughtful gesture may make a more speedy response possible in future such tragic incidents.