Everywhere in the world, we can observe and be touched by acts of kindness. People from all walks of life, faiths, and cultures extend themselves beyond the call of duty to help others unconditionally. Through their noble deeds, humanity as a whole is elevated.

To commend virtuous actions and encourage more people to be inspired by their examples, Supreme Master Ching Hai has lovingly created a series of awards, including the Shining World Leadership Award, Shining World Compassion Award, Shining World Hero and Heroine Awards, Shining World Honesty Award, Shining World Protection Award, Shining World Intelligence Award, and Shining World Inventor Award, to recognize some of the most exemplary, generous, caring, and courageous people who walk amongst us.

June 1, 2009 was an ordinary, idyllic day at Mordialloc Creek located near Melbourne, Australia. The water was still and the sky was clear. Out of the blue, Mr. David Thomson, owner of Bluey’s Boathouse, a boat for hire business, heard an oddly loud splash in the water.

It was a really, really loud noise. I looked up and could see this big wave sort of coming up the creek from this big loud thing where it had fallen in. It’s a protected inlet so it's always flat. So when something goes weird, you know that something is wrong.

What incredible event had just occurred that disturbed such a peaceful inlet?

There was some work being done on the creek down here and the river inlet and a guy was on an excavator on a floating platform, and something happened with the excavator, it tipped over and the excavator fell into the river and he was trapped underneath the excavator.

The worker, named John, had fallen overboard along with the heavy machinery which weighed between 20 to 30 tons.

It's like a big crane and upside down. It was already sunk to the bottom, but it was settling and getting deeper and deeper and it was pretty scary.

His foot was caught. He was caught underwater and couldn’t get up; he was drowning.

John was pinned in a precarious position. As Mr. Thomson described, “A centimeter deeper and he would have been dead, a centimeter higher and he would have been able to breathe without taking in water.” While John’s co-worker tried to operate the machinery to release him, Mr. Thomson dove without hesitation into the chilly waters to try to help the drowning stranger.

I was sort of half diving, half going underneath him and pushing him up as hard as I could to get his nose above water but I could only get his nose sort of above water but not clear. So he was unfortunately drowning as that was happening.

According to Mr. Thomson, John was underwater for between 8-10 minutes. At this point, Mr. Thomson felt his efforts were becoming futile as the man could still not stay above the water’s surface and was ingesting too much water.

He was a really brave guy. Once he worked out what I was trying to do, every time I pushed him up, he was trying to blow water out, like a whale, but his strength was going pretty quickly and so that was sort of slowing down as time went by.

He was just sinking further and further down and we were underwater.

In such a desperate situation, time is of the essence. Fortunately, as this tragic ordeal played out, Mr. Thomson was able to keep a level head in such a stressful predicament.

I felt relatively calm, but I felt a little bit helpless because I could see that he was losing strength and we were sinking deeper and deeper. I was thinking of all these different things that I could do to get ourselves out of that situation.

A crowd of people had begun to gather at the scene of the disaster, but they could only look on in shock as they witnessed the struggles of the drowning man and Mr. Thomson’s attempts to save him. As John’s status was weakening and becoming evermore critical, Mr. Thomson quickly tried to get the attention of passersby to call for additional assistance.

While I was in the water, I was yelling out to people to call emergency services and where I'd dived into the creek, my phone was still on the side on the grass there, so I got a person to find that phone to ring 000. The emergency services started coming, but we didn’t have that time, we'd already been in the water a long time at that stage.

But as the minutes and seconds ticked away, Mr. Thomson could see the chances for John’s survival was getting slimmer.

When the guy was slowly sort of sinking down, I realized, I'm not going to be able to get him above the water because we were sinking further in.

What will Mr. Thomson do next? How will John be rescued? Stay tuned to Supreme Master Television as our program continues with the courageous efforts of Mr. Thomson and the presentation of his Shining World Hero Award from Supreme Master Ching Hai.

Welcome to today’s program featuring the extraordinary bravery, quick thinking and selflessness of Mr. David Thomson, a Shining World Hero Award recipient from Supreme Master Ching Hai.

Mr. Thomson was at the scene of a construction accident that occurred at Mordialloc Creek in Australia where a 20 to 30 ton piece of machinery had toppled into the water and pinned a worker named John underwater. Without delay, Mr. Thomson jumped into the icy waters to offer aid. Despite his best efforts to keep John above water level as it lapped in and out of his mouth, Mr. Thomson could see that he needed to an alternate plan of action.

I was just going through my head all the things I've got at the Boat Hire, such as funnels and tubes and things and yelling out at people to get those things and eventually we came up with a vacuum cleaner hose which I was able to use.

Although under stress, Mr. Thomson relied on his instincts to quickly fashion the hose into a life-saving device.

I put my hand over the end of the vacuum cleaner hose and inserted it under water and put that into his mouth and then tried to hold his jaw around, but his jaw was fairly loose so then I decided to just start to blowing as much air in as I could. He was fighting but his strength had gone and he turned blue.

Even at this late stage, Mr. Thomson did not give up on John. His determination is truly admirable. He continued to struggle to free John from the heavy excavator and his perseverance proved fruitful.

As he went under for the last time, I was able to get him free eventually. I had to start thinking about how to do CPR and all the things you’ve got to do. As I pulled him eventually up, the emergency services arrived on the scene and took over from me to get him to recover.

Afterwards, Mr. Thomson discovered another miraculous factor that was in John’s favor. In his recounting this fact, Mr. Thomson reveals his humble nature in not taking credit for saving the life of John.

Where he was trapped, his boot was strapped upside down in the excavator, and when he had gone under for the last time, his foot slipped out his pair of boots, but they were one of those slide-on pair of boots and he'd only just got them. Up till then, he always had big lace-up boots, and if that was the case, he wouldn’t have gotten out. So he was a lucky man whoever bought the boots.

For his altruistic spirit, noble heart and courageous actions to save another life, Supreme Master Ching Hai recognized Mr. Thompson with the Shining World Hero Award. She wrote a personal letter to be presented to Mr. Thomson along with the beautiful crystal plaque.

Dear Mr. Thomson, It is with the greatest pleasure and gratitude that we present to you the “Shining World Hero Award.” This Award is presented in recognition of your outstanding bravery in the face of danger, your life-saving act of selfless assistance and your kind-hearted spirit of service to others blessing our world with a shining example of nobility, courage and love… On hearing of your wonderful act of compassion and initiative, we are reminded of Australia’s great tradition of mateship, the legendary Anzac spirit and the long entrenched culture of helping out a neighbor in need.

You bring to life these noble qualities in a way that helps make our community so much more warmly connected, supportive and life-enhancing. Inspired by your loving example, we can all be heroes to each other. Thank you so much, David, for making a positive difference in our world! For compassionately coming to the aid of those in need, for your decisive judgement and cool response under pressure, and for being a gallant and noble role model, we hereby applaud and celebrate the brave-hearted deeds of our mate, Mr. David Thomson, fair dinkum Aussie hero.

With Great Honour, Love and Blessings, Supreme Master Ching Hai

I appreciate that. That’s lovely. Thank you. I wasn’t expecting that. Thank you.

In addition, Mr. Thomson received gifts on behalf of Supreme Master Ching Hai as well as a custom-made Hero jacket.

It’s very well made, isn’t it?

It even fits beautifully.

Oh that’s beautiful. That’s really nice.

Now I'm warm so thank you, thank you very much. I greatly appreciate it.

At the conclusion of the presentation ceremony, Mr. Thomson wished to express his gratitude to Supreme Master Ching Hai.

I greatly appreciate it. To Supreme Master Ching Hai, I haven’t met you but thank you very much. I really, really appreciate it. Thank you!

We salute you, Mr. Thomson, for your swift and selfless actions in the face of great adversity which helped saved a precious human life. Heaven’s blessings for your abundant health and lasting happiness.

Thank you, benevolent viewers, for your company today. Please keep your dial tuned to Supreme Master Television for Words of Wisdom, up next after Noteworthy News. May your days be filled with inner bliss, peace and blessings.

From physics to alchemy, Dr. Theresa Ibis explores the fundamental rules of life and the Universe and reveals esoteric knowledge out of her passion to benefit people in all aspects of their lives.

Ultimately, I think the goal would be to spiritualize matter, to bring our material world into a more elevated state, create Heaven on Earth, for example.

Find out more about her exciting work on Part 1 of “Indigo Bridge In Service: Dr. Theresa Ibis” Monday, January 4, on Science and Spirituality.