21 Nov '14 13:30>
Originally posted by DeepThoughtWhen someone needs help I usually jump in, not thinking of anything. I don't do the coward:hero calculus.
What if the cowardice caused others harm? If I failed to act and take on a risk I'd have to live with the consequences of that so that in the end risking my own life might be the easier choice.
That could get me in trouble in some circumstances. I once came across a semi truck wreck in Canada when i and my family were on vacation. The place was full of people just staring at the truck. I noticed fuel dripping down from the fuel tank and then saw a guy buried inside the cab with the passenger seat pinning him in place bent like a pretzel. I didn't even think, just climbed up the side of the truck and beat out the windshield from the inside and pulled the seat off the guy and he was able to climb out the window. I saw he was ok, just shook up and we just left before the police got there. That action may have saved his life but in retrospect it was a dangerous thing for me to have done, I could have been on the truck and if it had caught fire....None of that went through my mind, I had to act and did while the crowd around the truck was just staring with their thumbs up their collective ass.
An event happened just yesterday at work, there was a fire alarm and everyone was exiting and one of them said there is smoke. Again, I didn't even think of consequences, I ran as fast as I could to the trouble spot not knowing what to expect. As it turned out it was just a dust cloud given off by a guy using a vacuum cleaner, a shop vac, that didn't have a filter inside and the room he was cleaning had a smoke detector and the dust set it off. Fire department came by and we showed them it was a false alarm but I didn't know that when I started running to the possible flames. i just knew my buddy was there in that room.
I guess in retrospect it was kind of dumb for me to have reacted that way but something inside me short circuits my brain in cases like that.