“I called her and I said, ‘Hey, this is Jimmy Doohan. Scotty of Star Trek. I’m doing a convention in Indianapolis, and I want to see you there.'” he explained. “I saw her. Boy, I’m telling you — I couldn’t believe what I saw. It was definitely suicide. Somebody had to help her, somehow. And, obviously, she wasn’t going to the right people.”

Doohan told the woman about each surrounding area convention (and some in nearby states) that he would be at and said he wanted to see her at each.

“That went on for two or three years, maybe 18 times,” he said. “And all I did was talk positive things to her. And then all of a sudden — nothing. I didn’t hear anything, and I had no idea what was really happening to her because I never really saved her address. Eight years later, I get a letter saying, ‘I do want to thank you so much for what you did for me, I just got my master’s degree in electronic engineering.'”

Watch James recount it here [2:02] | Article Source here

Check in on the people you love. You never know what someone is going through and just being there can help way more than you might know. Trust me as someone who doesn’t have anyone there.

Live long and prosper, friends 🖖

  • Ertebolle@kbin.social
    70·
    1 year ago

    He was also a badass pilot:

    Although he was never actually a member of the Royal Canadian Air Force, Doohan was once labelled the “craziest pilot in the Canadian Air Force”. In the late spring of 1945, on Salisbury Plain north of RAF Andover, he slalomed a plane between telegraph poles “to prove it could be done”, earning himself a serious reprimand. (Various accounts cite the plane as a Hurricane or a jet trainer; however, it was an Auster Mark IV.)

  • Seraph@kbin.social
    37·
    1 year ago

    Also be nice to strangers, you never know what they’re going through!

    I can’t imagine pushing someone over the edge just because I was short on patience one day. The thought really bothers me as I’m not a patient person.

      • fckreddit@lemmy.mlEnglish
        41·
        1 year ago

        I am sorry with what you have gone through. No I repeat, no one deserves to be treated like you were and I am assuming a lot of homeless are.

      • Syrc@lemmy.worldEnglish
        21·
        1 year ago

        One dude offered me a sandwich when he saw me dumpster diving. He said to stay in the area and I was desperate. I hadn’t eaten in days. Dude left and came back with a gas station sandwich that had clearly been previously unwrapped. Encouraged me to eat it. I opened it and the guy had put dog shit in the sandwich. I refused and he started to get aggressive but other people were around and started watching. That made him uncomfortable and he left.

        Honestly, what stops me from going crazy on assholes is thinking of everything I’d lose if I did. But if I’m already homeless and you offer me a sandwich with dog shit inside I don’t care, I’m beating you until I crush your skull. You don’t play around with cornered rats. You really have to be one of the worst people on the planet to do that, I’m doing a favor to humanity by removing you from it.

    • flipht@kbin.social
      3·
      1 year ago

      To add to this - sometimes, people are being shitty because the world has been so shitty to them. You can’t balance it out alone, but if every one of us were 5% more gentle with people we come across, there would be a ripple effect like this world has never seen.

      Want a startrek future? It’s going to take tiny steps from all of us to get there.

      • whoisearth@lemmy.caEnglish
        3·
        1 year ago

        Hurt people hurt people

        It’s a phrase I learned due to the toxicity of the relationship with my ex.

  • AllonzeeLV@lemmy.worldEnglish
    234·
    1 year ago

    People like James having existed feels like salt in the wound to the fact that the vast, vast majority of humans I’ve observed in my 3 and a half decades act like Feral Ferengi, exclusively interested in “what’s in it for me and who can I exploit to get it?”

    As I age, the humanity of Star Trek comes to feel as fantastical as the sci-fantasy in Star Wars.

    • jernej@lemmy.mlEnglish
      61·
      1 year ago

      Ferengis judged “Hoomons” for being worse than them. Ferengis never had slavery, and while they exploted eachother their hypercapitalist society was still more fair than ours (if you ignore the sexism)

      • Ghost33313@kbin.social
        1·
        1 year ago

        Did they ever follow up with how much of an impact Quark’s mom had? I remember all the drama in ds9 but I don’t know if it ever changed much.

        • jernej@lemmy.mlEnglish
          1·
          1 year ago

          Yes if I remembet Quarks mom helped achieve near equality, where women were allowed to do as much as men could

  • Mirshe@lemmy.worldEnglish
    11·
    1 year ago

    Just think, this was a guy who was at D-Day. And the best thing he considers in his life was saving a young woman’s life through nothing more than words and a promise.

  • gmtom@lemmy.worldEnglish
    124·
    1 year ago

    Great guy, but whole fuck sending multiple suicide notes to a celebrity you like is… yikes.

    • SneakyWeasel@lemmy.worldEnglish
      14·
      1 year ago

      I mean shit dude, sometimes these people literally have no one else to go to. There was a super scary example of it on a Chuggaconroy video where a comment was like “thanks for the memories and for making my days a bit better” and everyone figured it out, and like every single comment - including the creator - told him not to and they succeeded. But still it was fucking insane to see on a YouTube video.