* A little more than two years ago…

Illinois State Senator Willie Preston came to the rescue of a driver whose truck had flipped onto its side in Chicago last week.

Sen. Preston, who represents Illinois’ 16th District, was driving near 79th and Kedzie last Friday when he saw people recording something on their phones.

He said he then saw a semi that had flipped onto its side. It was smoking, and the driver was trapped inside.

Sen. Preston had a tool in his car, which he used to break the windshield and then helped the driver out of the cab.

Video is here.

* Yesterday…

Kathleen Miles is a north suburban mother to 11 kids and the grandmother to seven more. She’s the rock of her family, but now she’s recovering after getting rocked by a man in the Loop, who has spent time in jail for doing just that to several other women years ago.

“This has rocked our whole family cause the rock needs someone to take care of her,” Miles said from her Lake Villa home on Tuesday.

Miles has worked in the Loop for the last two decades, and a couple of weeks ago, she said she was walking to the train with a coworker along West Washington Avenue when a stranger blew through them and struck her in the face.

The attacker, WGN-TV was told, watched as she lay on the ground bleeding before a good Samaritan, who turned out to be state senator Willie Preston, stepped in, took off his shirt and tried to stop the bleeding. […]

“I think every system has failed [the attacker], whether it’s mental health or the justice system, I feel he’s been failed,” Miles said. “And as a result, we’ve all been failed.”

* I’ve been pleasantly surprised by Preston’s congressional campaign. This happened two weeks ago and Preston didn’t cravenly rush to post video or whatever on his social media platforms (especially since it happened the day before his formal campaign announcement). Maybe that’s my own soft bigotry of low political expectations, but I came by those low expectations after 35 years covering this stuff. /s

* Also, his videos have so far been pretty solid. Labor Day…