Ways to help you survive disasters

When a terrible accident occurs, most people fail to take action that could save their lives, says columnist Michael Bond. What are the things that might help us survive when disaster strikes? At seven in the evening on September 27, 1994, the cruise ship "MS Estonia" left the port of Tallinn, with 989 passengers on board. The ferry was bound for Stockholm via the Baltic Sea, but it never reached its destination. Six hours into the voyage, while she was sailing in the midst of a strong storm, the front gate broke and water began to seep into the ferry. In just one hour, the ship sank and 852 passengers and crew sank with it. Despite the speed with which the tragedy occurred, the sea turbulence during the storm, and the length of time it took for rescuers to arrive (a state of emergency was declared half an hour after the ship sank), rescue experts were surprised by the high death toll. It seems that many drowned because they did nothing to save their lives. An official report on the accident concluded that "a number of them (the passengers) apparently did not think rationally or act out of fear." The report added: "Some seemed to be confined to their places and unable to move. Those who were panicked, or in a state of apathy, or in shock, or who did not respond when other passengers tried to guide them, or even when they forced them to do so, could not be reached. Or yell at them. John Leach, a military instructor in rescue and survival assistance, conducts a study of human behavior during catastrophic conditions at the University of Portsmouth, UK. Leach found that in life-threatening situations, 75 percent of people become so confused that they are unable to think with a clear mind or plan to save their lives. They are paralyzed. And the percentage of those who keep their calm is only 15 percent. They think logically to reach decisions that can save them. (As for the rest, which is 10 percent, they are people who pose a danger, as they panic, and hinder the chances of survival for everyone around them). Leach has studied the behavior of many survivors and victims of dozens of disasters around the world, over several decades. Let us ask why so many give up, or fail to adapt to the impending disaster, despite their physical ability to save themselves? emergency exit We don’t always get a clear picture of what people really do in an emergency situation. The engineers who design evacuation procedures are used to the assumption that people react instantaneously when they hear sirens, smell smoke, feel a building shake, or a ship staggers. What makes people more likely to take risks is not their madness, or their animal rush for exits, but rather the avoidance of panic. One of the most vivid examples of people’s negativity today is what happened in the Twin Towers in New York, when they were hit by two hijacked planes on the 11th of September. Even those who finally came out waited six minutes, on average, before moving toward the stairs. Others waited for about half an hour, according to a study by the US National Institute of Standards and Technology. Because of the unpreparedness of these people for what happened to them, some of them continued what they were doing, and some of them remained suspended to see what would happen, or waiting for others to move first. One study found that half of those who survived delayed before trying to survive because they were calling phones, arranging things in drawers, locking office doors, turning off computers, or even changing their shoes. The means of survival A predominant psychological explanation for these types of behavior includes passivity, waiting, mental paralysis, or simply continuing to perform certain actions in the face of an emergency. This explanation lies in the failure to adapt to the sudden change taking place around us. Surviving disasters involves goal-oriented behavior. When you feel hungry, you start looking for food, and when you feel lonely, you start looking for company. But when going through a new or unfamiliar situation, especially one that causes obvious confusion, such as a shipwreck or a burning plane, establishing the location of your escape spaces in your mind—such as the location of the fire escape and the way to get there—requires much more effort. What is borne by cognition and awareness. "More often than not, emergencies happen faster than the mind can comprehend," explains Leach. An emergency is beyond our ability to think about getting rid of it. “When you get into a situation where your life is in danger, your emotional arousal increases,” says Jerome Chertkoff, a social psychologist at Indiana University. "For some, this reduces the number of alternatives they will consider, and this has a disadvantage when you are trying to determine the course of your behavior, since you may never think about the option that is most likely to save you in peace." Therefore, most rescue and survival experts agree on the following: The only reliable way to eliminate this type of harmful thinking is to prepare in advance for emergencies. This means remembering the exits in the event of a fire in the cinema, reading the evacuation instructions posted behind the doors of your hotel rooms, and always listening to the safety instructions posted on the planes. What about how to deal with others? How do those around us behave? Commentators often emphasize the stupidity or madness of crowds when disasters strike - like a stampede of pilgrims, a stampede of soccer fans, or a blind smash to the exits at a blazing nightclub. In fact, rescue experts say, it is rare during accidents to see such individual behavior. The strength is in our unity Research shows that, more often than not, groups of people support each other during disasters, not the other way around. “In emergencies, cooperation is the norm,” says Chris Cooking, who studies collective behavior at Brighton University. Take the suicide bombings in London on July 7, 2005, which killed 52 people and injured more than 700. Hundreds of commuters were trapped in a smoky subway for several hours, with no way to teach them how to save themselves, or tell them if other explosions were about to happen. In the midst of that chaos, most people cooperated a lot with each other, helping others. That’s the conclusion of a survey of survivors conducted by Cocking and his colleagues John Drury of the University of Sussex and Steve Riker of the University of St Andrews. Psychologists call this "collective resilience": it means group helping and lonely behavior in the face of danger. However, some emergencies can cloud the mind to the point where cooperation is out of the way for some, especially those who are deeply traumatized and unable to act positively. You may never encounter a catastrophe yourself, but it is best to imagine an emergency happening around you. You have to remain alert to the threats that may lie around you, and be able to prepare to meet them, of course without slipping into the point of insanity and the constant suspicion of disaster. "All you have to do is ask yourself a simple question: If something happened, what would my first reaction be?" When you can answer that question, everything will fall into place. It’s really that simple.