Fabulous Read: Story on Heroism

Northstarmom
Mon, 26 Nov 2007 09:52:56 +0000

I remember when this happened. I was the night administrative duty officer at the Bethesda Naval Hospital, and we were on standby expecting dozens of survivors – who never came…

The hidden cost of heroism
Scientists mystified by people who put the lives of strangers over their own

By Christopher Mcdougall
Men’s Health

Like all great mysteries, this begins with a corpse. On January 13, 1982, Air Florida Flight 90 smashed nose-first into the rock-solid ice covering the Potomac River just outside Washington, D.C. To horrified onlookers, it seemed impossible that anyone could be alive inside the mangled steel carcass slowly vanishing into the water. But one by one, six survivors gasped to the surface and grabbed desperately at the tail of the plane…

They’d had to swim up past their dead friends and seatmates and spouses to escape. They knew that unless they were pulled out, fast, they’d soon be sinking back down to join them. Just hanging on was agony: The six survivors had fractured arms and shattered legs, and their hands were freezing into claws that slipped from the wet steel…

“Help us!” they screamed. "We’re going to die out here!..”

They were doomed…until suddenly, miraculously, a rescue chopper came… . It dropped a life ring right into the hands of one of the survivors and plucked him from the water. Then things turned really strange.

The next person to receive the ring handed it over to someone else. The chopper lofted her to safety, then wheeled back.
The man gave away the ring again.
And again.
He even gave it away when he knew it was his last chance to live…"

[The hidden cost of heroism - Behavior - MSNBC.com](http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21902983)