Dozens of Japanese commuters help free a woman stuck between the platform and a 32-ton train.

Story highlights

Recent days have seen a spate of heroics

Teens on bicycles thwart kidnapping in Pennsylvania

River guide gets one chance to save unconscious man

Stuntmen at Comic-Con perform real-life rescue

CNN  — 

Every once in a while a story about an individual saving a life makes a big splash. But it’s rare to find five such stories of bravery clustered together in fewer than eight days.

From the teens who thwarted a kidnapping to the real-life superheroes who emerged at Comic-Con, here are five examples plucked from a week of headlines about human beings risking their own lives in some cases to assist their fellow travelers:

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