I don't know about it being a hero, but one instance comes to mind. Back about 20 years ago I was working in a hospital in Brooklyn as a Lieutenant in Security. The building was being totally remodeled with extra floors added. One night, on the 12 to 7am shift, something happened to cause the standby water pumps in the basement to turn on. These pumps and generators are supposed to kick in when there is a black-out or power loss and are run by diesel engines. I'm familiar with these types of engines because I was a Machinist Mate in the Navy and my primary job was running and up-keeping diesel pumps. Anyway, we noticed water running down the walls and stair-wells above the old hospital building, which was full of patients. I went up to the construction area and saw that water was shooting out of the toilet flush valves , sink faucets, and sprinkler system, which had burst from the high pressure of the water that the pumps were sending up to the top floors of the new building. There was no way to shut the water off up there, (it was like a river) so I ran down the 7 or 8 flights of stairs (the elevators were automatically shut down because of the burst sprinkler system) and was able to shut down all the pumps by their emergency shut-off valves. It was a mess, but I think I saved the hospital thousands of dollars in repairs and also we didn't have to evacuate any patients. I felt proud that I was able to "save the day"! I made out a Incident Report which I handed in to my superior. By the way, I never did get a "Thank You" from the management.
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