Brave teen fights off pit bull.

Thomas "T.J." Moehler, a 16-year-old junior at Central Regional High School in Bayville, New Jersey, was in his home on April 29, 2005, when he heard a ruckus outside. The noise turned out to be coming from 10-year-old Marky Stanfield, a neighbor boy who was fleeing on a bike away from a 75-pound pit bull. Seeking safety, Stanfield turned into Moehler's driveway. It was there that the dog caught him. Running outside, Moehler saw the dog biting Stanfield on the legs and feet.

"It was a pretty big pit bull," T.J. recently told the Asbury Park Press. "I was pretty scared." True heroism, however, is not the absence of fear, but action in the face of fear.

And T.J. had good cause to be apprehensive. Not only was the powerfully built dog in full attack mode, but the teenager was wearing shorts and had a cast on his arm. He nevertheless took action and pulled the dog off Marky, using his cast as a weapon to pound the vicious dog.

Marky managed to get away from the dog, but he had received multiple bites on his foot that required stitches, and one of his toes had been severed and had to be reattached.

The dog then turned on Moehler biting him repeatedly before he could manage to escape the dog by getting atop a parked car. In the course of the rescue, T.J. received several bites and re-broke his arm, which required surgery to insert a screw in his wrist.

The dog was later captured by police and destroyed.