Milan, Italy, before nine o'clock. Like every morning Emanuela Galloni brought her son Manuel to school when suddenly a delivery van hurled on the sidewalk directly to a group of pupils.

Seconds before, the car collided with another vehicle on the crossing. Guiseppe Paoli drove the van who delivers express packages for a courier service. He did not feel good this morning. While driving he felt giddy, ignored the right-of-way of the other car and collided with it. The impact was so violent that the delivery van skidded over the crossing towards the pavement. When Emanuela saw the car coming, she ran to the children and pushed them to the side.

The car hit the 33 year old women, threw her to ground and pushed her a short way. It came to a halt in front of the shocked children. Emanuela was lying motionless on the ground, her legs were under the delivery van, but she was with consciousness. The children were not injured. An ambulance brought Emanuela Galloni into a clinic where the physicians found several fractures of her legs. Then a few operations followed.

For her merit some times later the courageous housewife got the Italian rescue medal. Her husband received the honour representatively since she was not allowed to leave the hospital that time.