Whalespiration

A swimmer stranded at sea for over 12 hours was surrounded by a pod of bottlenose dolphins, which helped volunteers locate and rescue the man.
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Two divers were swimming with a rough-toothed dolphin when a curious shark appeared. The dolphin swam around the divers and vocalized until the shark left the area.
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A humpback whale protected a whale biologist from an aggressive tiger shark. Remarkably, the woman was reunited with the whale that saved her life a year later.
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Bottlenose dolphins led a team of researchers to a girl lost at sea with a suicide note in her pocket.
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Marathon swimmer Adam Walker sees a shark beneath him while swimming across the Cook Strait. Then a pod of 10 dolphins suddenly joins him until the shark disappears.
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A visit from a “porpoise” (likely a dolphin) encourages fisherman Joey Trevino to not lose hope after his boat sank and he was lost at sea for 30 hours.
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During a freediving competition in the arctic tank at an aquarium in China, a distressed diver is guided to the surface by Mila the beluga whale, saving her life.
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A pod of dolphins, and possibly even pilot whales, save a local fisherman from drowning after his small boat overturns during a squall. Making the story even more unique, the fisherman is also an official dolphin warden who promotes dolphin and whale shark watching as a tourist attraction in his town.

A pod of bottlenose dolphins form a protective ring around a surfer that had just been severely mauled by a great white shark allowing him to get to shore, saving his life.

Dolphins draw rescuers’ attention to a lone scuba diver who was knocked unconscious after being hit by a boat, ultimately saving his life.
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Dolphins surround a group of swimmers protecting them from a nearby great white shark, preventing an attack.
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Thirteen divers lost at sea for over 13 hours believe a pod of dolphins led rescuers directly to them.
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After over 40 hours stranded in the ocean, a fisherman is surrounded and protected by dolphins, preventing a shark attack.
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Elian Gonzalez, the Cuban boy that was at the center of an international custody dispute, says dolphins saved his life by helping him stay above water and cling to an inner tube after the boat he was travelling in sank.

A dolphin named Filippo rescues a 14-year-old boy who fell overboard from his father’s boat.
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After losing more than 5 pints of blood to a mako shark, a swimmer is rescued when dolphins arrive and drive the shark away.
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A British tourist is surrounded and protected by dolphins during a shark encounter, allowing time for rescue.
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After humans failed to guide 76 stranded pilot whales to sea, a pod of dolphins successfully led them to safety.
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In Whangarei Harbour in New Zealand in 1978, fifty pilot whales attempted to beach themselves. Government officials tried to encourage the whales back into the sea but unfortunately failed. The officials went out on speedboats and guided a passing group of dolphins back into the harbour. When they arrived, the dolphins seemed to see the plight the whales were in and guided the whales toward open water.

Actor Dick Van Dyke recalls being pushed to shore by porpoises after drifting out to sea while napping on a surfboard.
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A young girl was taken for the ride of her life on the back of a dolphin, keeping her safe from a nearby shark.

Scuba instructor Chris Cruz and diving crews survived the tsunami after following dolphins to safety off the coast of Khao Lak, north of Phuket.
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On the night of February 29, 1960, Mrs. Yvonne M. Bliss of Stuart fell 
from a boat off the east coast of Grand Bahama Island in the West Indies.' "After floating, swimming, shedding more clothing for what seemed an eternity, I saw a form in the water to the left of me. ... It touched the side of my hip and, thinking it must be a shark, I moved over to the right to try to get away from it. This change in my position was to my advantage as heretofore I was bucking a cross tide and the waves would wash over my head and I would swallow a great deal of water. This sea animal which I knew by this time must be a porpoise had guided me so that I was being carried with the tide. "After another eternity and being thankful that my friend was keeping away the sharks and barracuda for which these waters are famous, the porpoise moved back of me and came around to my right side. I moved over to give room to my companion and later knew that had not the porpoise done this, I would have been going downstream to deeper and faster moving waters. The porpoise had guided me to the section where the water was the most shallow. Shortly I touched what felt like fish netting to my feet. It was seaweed and under that the glorious and most welcome bottom. As I turned toward shore, stumbling, losing balance, and saying a prayer of thanks, my rescuer took off like a streak on down the channel."

In 1945 the wife of a well-known trial attorney residing in Florida was saved from drowning by a dolphin. This woman had stepped into a sea with a strong undertow and was immediately dragged under. Just before losing consciousness, she remembers hoping that someone would push her ashore. "With that, someone gave me a tremendous shove, and I landed on the beach, face down, too exhausted to turn over . . . when I did, no one was near, but in the water almost eighteen feet out a porpoise was leaping around, and a few feet beyond him another large fish was also leaping." In this case the porpoise was almost certainly a dolphin and the large fish a fishtail shark. A man who had observed the events from the other side of a fence told the rescued woman that this was the second time he had seen a drowning person saved by a "porpoise."

The dolphin's extraordinary interest in and, what we will I am sure not be far wrong in interpreting as, concern for human beings, is dramatically told by George Llano in his report Airmen Against the Sea. This report, written on survival at sea during the Second World War, records the experience of six American airmen, shot down over the Pacific, who found themselves in a seven-man raft being pushed by a porpoise toward land. Unfortunately the land was an island held by the Japanese. The friendly porpoise must have been surprised and hurt when he found himself being dissuaded from his pushing by being beaten of with the oars of the airmen.

The Vietnamese navy was assisted by a pod of dolphins that helped rescue sailors whose boat was sunk by Chinese invaders. Since then the Vietnamese people have worshiped dolphins and whales and erected a building called the "Temple of the Whale."