More child heroes
I love these stories when they have happy endings:
“I had him in my arms and still screaming over and over. Then I ran outside. I saw two boys playing across the street, and I yelled, ‘Go ask your parents to call 911,'” Rohm said.
But the two boys were able to do more than help. Nine-year-old Ethan Wilson sprang into action, showing Rohm how to perform CPR on young Isiah while 10-year-old Rocky Hurt helped as well. Rocky says he learned the CPR technique from a poster in a health class at their school, Sedalia Park Elementary.
Back in the 80s and 90s when I used to watch one of my favorite TV shows, “Rescue 911” (I’ve written about it before in a number of posts), I noticed that one of the recurrent themes was child rescuers. So although the phenomenon may be rare it’s hardly unheard of. And although society has changed a lot since that time, children are probably even better informed about safety than they once were. Even though kids may be more jaded now, they’re probably still eager and willing to be heroes if they get the opportunity, and are often fully capable of rising to the occasion.
Here are some excerpts from my very first post on “Rescue 911” and children who help save others. I found the phenomenon moving then, and I find it moving now:
[“Rescue 911”] was one of my guilty pleasures. A reality show that featured staged reenactments of actual 911 calls and their aftermath, it was something I watched often although I learned that people would make fun of me when I’d talk about it so enthusiastically…Rare was the show (most of them featuring three or four vignettes) when at least one of its tales didn’t make me cry.
Was I a softie? Maybe. But part of the reason the show engendered such emotional responses was that the episodes were believably done, and part of the reason for that was that the actors were frequently the original participants, who often seemed to experience a sort of psychodrama effect during the reenactments. Another reason was that you never knew how it would end (unless you saw the original participant narrating at the outset; then at least you knew that that person had survived). Most had happy outcomes, but not all by any means.
Last night it occurred to me that I might be able to go to YouTube and watch some of the shows. Sure enough, that turned out to be the case. In fact, one could spend many many MANY hours doing so. Therefore I warn you that if you’re of a certain cast of mind, this activity could be addictive.
…I chose to watch the following one first, almost at random…Something about these little girls (who now would be grown women) touched my heart—their sweetness and kindness, and then the surprising twist at the end when…well, I won’t tell you. Watch for yourself:
While it is true that one can spend “many many MANY” house watching these youtubes, did you?
Spend, that is, many many MANY many many MANY many many MANY many many MANY many many MANY many many MANY many many MANY many many MANY many many MANY many many MANY hours watching?
vanderleun:
Yes.
Wanna make something of it?
I don’t think the following got enough ink.
http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/08/10/13217164-hero-boy-4-dies-after-saving-3-year-old-girl-in-pool?lite
Very sweet story, thanks.
The Boy Scout’s magazine, Boys Life, used to have a regular feature where a Scout rescued someone or saved a life. My memory is that there was a life saving award also.
I once received a wrong number call. The lady was polite and apologized and then hung up. An hour later, I noticed the same number on my caller ID calling me back. It was an old man looking for his daughter. He was completely blind, and her telephone had more buttons on it than his own standard 12 button phone, and he accidentally hit ‘redial’. He was having some sort of medical emergency and was trying to locate his daughter, who turned out to be the woman who accidentally called me. He gave me the number he needed to call, which was her work number and just a digit off from being my phone number.
She was quite surprised to hear me calling her, and even more surprised to hear the story of why I was calling her.
But all turned out well, and it was a happy accident.
I always found it peculiar that Japanese shows often times had children or teenagers as the main heroes and heroines, the movers and shakers of the world around them. It made perfect sense in a barbarian historical sense, where manhood was measured at 11-13 years of age, the same as marriage and independence.
As civilization became more decadent and weak/soft, the age limit kept going up and up for certain things. As if there was an Elf syndrome that applied, where people weren’t considered adults until they were 100 years of age, or 30 years of age in our modern day circles. Forced lack of maturation.
Nevertheless, the stories of various teenagers in those Japanese story productions that faced challenges worthy of heroes and gods, and surmounted them made for very enjoyable fiction and drama.
Richard Aubrey,
The old refrain is that heroes only exist because of other people’s F ups.
” it was something I watched often although I learned that people would make fun of me when I’d talk about it so enthusiastically”
A product of a warped psyche, those who cannot understand the sublime beauty of human terror and triumph, their true reward it becomes.
This is a frontier where the schism between life and death is explored until the end of days. It is a mandatory maturation process for those who wish to become capable of accepting death or those who wish to fight to survive in life no matter the odds.
I once went into a public wave pool without knowing how to swim, remaining in the air due to my height alone. Until I realized that the waves were pulling me into the deeper parts of the pool, that is. For all intents and purposes I really felt like I was going to die if I didn’t do something, and that “doing something” was actually getting me pulled deeper into the pool. I had to perform a spine lock down on emotions and allow instinct to sit upon the throne of command, using logic as its subordinate. Only then did I come to realize that my moving about trying to fight against the current was pulling me deeper in, and that if I didn’t correctly judge the problem and solution, I would soon be in so deep my feet would have no foundation upon which to rest. In an instant, logic had brought about the final analysis conclusion that if just stayed rooted to the earth and allowed a wave to pass me, and then attempting to slowly tiptoe backwards, I would make progress. And so I did.
Emotions will always interfere with thinking and logic, but only when one has given up on letting emotion sit on the throne, can logic be used to its fullest. An easy explanation for the significant “intellectual” malaise and corruption we see in modern academia. A fanatic and/or true believing zealot in the cause of the Left’s Deus Ex Machina Utopia, cannot truly utilize their mental capabilities beyond the curtain of death.
Emotions are so powerful that propagandists can use it to make their subjects believe that the ideas of revolution and social engineering came from the subjects themselves rather than from the true progenitors, the will of propagandists. Logic is merely a subordinate to the will of that which sits upon the throne of command.
It is a sad day upon Earth when humans seek to control others when they cannot even control themselves. It is a triumphant day when humans master themselves: their desires, their fears, their anxieties, their vices and weaknesses.
“Cause pain before you injure. Injure before you maim. Maim before you kill. And if you must kill, make it a clean kill. Squeeze every drop of life from the opponent. Because life is so precious, it cannot be wasted, even in death.”
“Let him cut your skin, and you cut his flesh. Let him cut your flesh, and you cut his bones. Let him cut your bones, and you cut off his life.”
As things progress, my belief in the conclusion that one must understand both sides of the coin to understand one side, strengthens. The Japanese once believed that a victory in a duel would be either you killing the foe, or you and the foe killing each other. The ability to witness a lethal attack and not defend against it, instead taking the time to exert one’s full attack potential, requires a mental will beyond that of Obama’s golfing entertainments.
On the reverse side, there are those individuals who have trained their body, minds, and spirits to be able to save not only themselves but others in the face of terror and violence. They can do so even without the cost of their lives. One might say that merely human challenges of money, jobs, and social status aren’t enough to challenge the desires of some people. Those people need something more concrete, more objective, more sublimely true as a challenge to face and overcome. Something that has no equal, because it is the great equalizer: death itself.
Those who become the greatest killers, also have a natural talent for becoming the greatest saviors.
P.S. Many of the Greek philosophers were warriors and citizen militia first, and then thinkers. Because the combination of the two is the only true path to wisdom and enlightenment. Until humans come face to face with death and put instinct upon the throne, their logic and emotions will be inefficiently used.