Pardon the thread drift.
This reminded me of two incidents I became involved in about 20 years ago, with one occurring shortly after the other. My reactions, and that of others, were the results of adrenaline and surprise, and perhaps provide some insight into how we humans are wired.
In the first one, I was at a park, sitting at a table in a picnic area. Suddenly there was a commotion and screams at an adjacent table. A guy in his 50s had pitched face down on the table and stopped moving.
The scene was like a video that had been paused; no one made a move. I ran to the table, grabbed him under the arms, hauled him out onto the ground, checked for a pulse and clear airway, and began chest compressions...all just a bit slower than it took for you to read this sentence.
After a few long minutes of this, I looked up to see if anyone looked like they were ready to rotate in. All I saw were gaping expressions. The members of the gathering crowd weren't going to get involved.
To the man's good fortune, a fire station was a few blocks away, and within a couple more minutes the paramedics had successfully used an AED to restore a stable heartbeat. I found out later that after some badly needed heart surgery, he made a full recovery.
I witnessed a another situation at the lake just weeks later when a young man disappeared after diving off of a marina dock into water just 8' deep at our local lake. His friends and bystanders did nothing but scream and point.
I jumped in, along with one other person, and tried to perform an improvised grid search. After ten minutes, I was exhausted and knew further efforts just endangered me and had no hope of success. His body was located about 15 minutes later.
After reading the above linked Wiki page, which was quite interesting, it provided some insight into how people respond to these things.
I don't know why my first reaction in these incidents was to do what seemed obvious. I'm certainly not the muscular hero type. I just saw a situation where my immediate involvement was needed. It was gratifying that the first person survived his close brush with death.
The second victim's drowning was a real shock to me, and I think it
was because he was young, it was a beautiful sunny day, and it happened so quickly with a very real and sobering end. His friends had witnessed something that isn't supposed to happen to the young in the prime of life. It was truly incomprehensible to them...hell, to me too.
The confrontations with death I witnessed caused starkly different reactions between me and those bystanders. I don't have any memory of making a conscious decision to act the way I did. It was totally automatic. I decided upon action, the others stood and watched.
The vicissitudes of life place challenges before us, and I suppose how we respond is driven by a complex combination of upbringing, values, the particular situation, and perhaps the social setting.
I hope this is understandable. I just typed out how I felt and reacted at the time. It was visceral and real when it occurred, and it all happened quickly.
