Have you seen this?
This was taken by a college videographer who was taking footage for something completely different, but happened to witness a car-motorcycle collision. What happened next was nothing short of extraordinary. Or, was it?
A couple of days before this happened Dave and I had an interesting conversation with a guy about what makes humans different from animals. The consensus was that, when faced with danger, animals run away. Humans run in.
Animals think of their dying peers as one less to battle with for food, shelter, or territory; one less to compete with for a mate; one less to keep them from getting to the top of the hierarchy. Why don't humans feel the same way? How come, when we see a drowning man, we jump in the pool instead of saying, 'Well, one down, 6,799,999,999 to go.' How come, when we see a car accident, house fire, burglary-in-progress, or attempted kidnapping, we don't think twice before running in?
Is it because we, as a society, are more advanced? moral? ethical? caring? Hmmm . . . I guess sometimes that's true. I think it's more likely in our genetic makeup that gives us a propensity for putting others ahead of ourselves, for reciprocal altruism. Of course, we are not the only creature to care for its own. Take this example from a BBC article I recently read.
"If a (vampire) bat goes more than 48 hours without blood, it will begin to starve. If this happens, other bats will regurgitate blood into its mouth until it is nursed back to health."
But, the article sites that non-human altruism is often due only to a selfish survival instinct. The bats keep track of their blood donations so they know who to look to when they need a future favor. Do we do that? Do we do for others to build up our Karma-bank balance? Do we do for others as we hope they will do for us? A skewed Golden Rule of sorts? Certainly. Heroes receive news coverage, pats on the back, respect. However, I would venture to guess that we often don’t know the recipient of our favors personally.
In the case of the video, the one person who did know that the man was under the car was the driver. He didn't help out much. I would imagine that his brain was a little scattered at the moment, so his lack of action is understandable. But, consider the others. The man who called 911. The girl who laid on the ground to see if the man under the car was alive. The guy in the green shirt who pulled the man out. The officers who put out the fire. None of these folks thought for a second about their own safety. The just ran in.
The news is full of it – well, maybe not the sensationalistic 10:00-headlines kind of news. But, if you look for them, you can find stories of heroes all over the world:
- The cousins who threw rocks and sticks at a would-be kidnapper.
- The guy driving by who saw a hand sticking out of a canal in mid-winter and jumped in to pull the frozen man to safety.
- The blind woman rescued from her burning house by her blind neighbor.
- The 15-year old who grabbed the school bus steering wheel after the driver suffered a heart attack, keeping the bus full of children from running off the road.
- The 10-year-old who jumped into the path of a train to save her 3-week-old cousin, whose stroller had rolled onto the tracks.
- The parents with a house full of adopted special needs kids.
- The family who visited the humane society and came home with a new friend.
- The person who hands an apple to the man with the cardboard sign on the corner.
What can we each do today to be a hero? It doesn’t take life-saving acts of kindness. It just takes open eyes, and an open heart.
That's what I want on my epitaph: She ran in. :)