Posted on 08/07/2005 3:41:43 PM PDT by neverdem
ONE survivor of the Air France crash in Toronto on Tuesday described the "panic" of his fellow passengers. Yet these people had just evacuated a burning plane in about two minutes. While they had had critical help from the plane's crew members, those trained professionals were busy assisting people with limited mobility, not providing psychotherapy. Thus what the passenger observed was clearly not "panic" in the sense of an unthinking crowd acting irrationally and abandoning the norms of civilized behavior. Indeed, it was the exact opposite.
The Air France evacuation required an extraordinary degree of social coordination - which emerged among a group of strangers with virtually no time to prepare. Once out of the wreckage, they were aided by other strangers who, on the spur of the moment and with no expertise in emergency situations, had pulled off a nearby highway and calmly charged into the scene, despite the risks posed by an exploding plane.
While this sort of behavior is often described as remarkable, it is actually what researchers have come to expect. Studies of civilians' intense experiences in the London Blitz; the cities of Japan and Germany in World War II; the 1947 smallpox outbreak in New York; the earthquake in Kobe, Japan, in 1995; and even fires have found that people, however stressed, almost always keep their wits and elevate their humanity.
Indeed, the critical first responders in almost any crisis are ordinary citizens whom fate has brought together. As Kathleen Tierney, head of the University of Colorado's Natural Hazards Center, has noted, "The vast majority of live rescues are carried out by community residents who are at the scene of disasters, not by official response agencies or outside search and rescue teams."
In these ways, the Air France crash was fundamentally no different from the...
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Being calm in the midst of crisis is a good thing.
Really, I must say .....DUH!
well it was Canada but DUH! The DUH! means for Americans it is obvious.
I mean a MAN will do what is needed, when needed in an emergency.
Another reason why one of the best defenses against terrorism is responsible citizens exercising their second amendment rights. There is no way for "official agencies" to be instantly on-hand when a situation develops. However, members of a self-reliant citizenry can be, and in most cases will act judiciously and responsibly, but also quickly in such a situation.
So will a WOMAN do what's needed in an emergency.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.