Are You a Survivor?

Much is written about natural disasters. We hear that a hurricane hit here, tornadoes there and floods in yet another place. We also hear plenty about man-made disasters like wildfires, toxic spills and human attack. So-called disasters are common enough across the country that we hear about something happening nearly every day.

We are fortunate to sometimes hear first-hand stories that tell of heroism in these situations. More rarely we might get to hear the part of people merely trying to survive. Those people are us. Well, me anyway. My motto is to say that "We are the First Responders" in these situations. In the time between the incident and the time of official response, we all too often are simply on our own. We might be able to rally some help, of course, but even greater numbers of people will need help. Some of them will survive, and those are the people to study.

Here is a story about a phone call from a passenger in the aircraft that ultimately crashed into the Hudson river:

'My plane's crashed into the river'

Now compare that to the report about the call from the pilot of the same aircraft:

Splashdown: The moment Captain Cool landed an Airbus
on the Hudson River...
and saved 155 lives

So we ask ourselves how regular people work together with airline crew to escape something like this? What goes through the thoughts of the participants, the thoughts which save their lives? What training have they had (perhaps subconsciously), and what talents were built-in at birth?

Here is a book I found to be very useful in understanding our responses, titled:

The Unthinkable

Who Survives When Disaster Strikes - and Why

Click on the title above for a more thorough description of the book and author, Amanda Ripley. Here is what Random House has to say about this book:

"Today, nine out of ten Americans live in places at significant risk of earthquakes, hurricanes, tornadoes, terrorism, or other disasters. Tomorrow, some of us will have to make split-second choices to save ourselves and our families. How will we react? What will it feel like? Will we be heroes or victims? Will our upbringing, our gender, our personality–anything we’ve ever learned, thought, or dreamed of–ultimately matter?

Ripley comes back with precious wisdom about the surprising humanity of crowds, the elegance of the brain’s fear circuits, and the stunning inadequacy of many of our evolutionary responses. Most unexpectedly, she discovers the brain’s ability to do much, much better, with just a little help.

The Unthinkable escorts us into the bleakest regions of our nightmares, flicks on a flashlight, and takes a steady look around. Then it leads us home, smarter and stronger than we were before."

(Used with permission from Random House Publishers, Inc.)

We can all enhance our probability of survival through better understanding of how we react normally and how to deal with that in order to be better prepared to do the job at hand if the time comes that we need to help others or ourselves.