http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/americas/01/20/haiti.earthquake.survivors/index.html
After our last class and our discussion on survivors and Cast Away, I started to become more interested in the topic. I started to read articles on the Earthquake that occurred in Haiti and how many thousands of people were killed because of it. More interesting to me, though, were the stories on people who didn't die, and many of them who were trapped for days and survived on little or nothing to help them through the passing days.
One story I found particularly interesting was the story of Monley, a five year old boy that survived after being trapped for about eight days. One of the main reasons that they thought that the boy survived for so long was because of his youg, fairly helathy body. I can't imagine being five years old trapped without anyone or anything to help you out. He had enough motivation to keep himself fighting to stay alive for over a week. When your body is put in that kind of situation, it's amazing what it can do. His body obviously chose fight over flight.
Talking about Physiological needs, the body needs food and water, none of which the boy had for the duration that he was trapped. Water was so important to the boy that when he was rescued, all he kept saying was "I"m thirsty, I'm thirsty." This was according to a video that was attached to the article. Everyone wanted to give him food and water right away but couldn't because the body would not have been able to handle it. They had to slowly give him fluids to help his body start to recover first.
I also wondered if the type of psychological needs one has determines how likely you are to survive a tragedity like that one. Does one who strives for challenges, power, or control over things survive longer because they want to succeed and not fail? or does one who is intrisically motivated survive over one who's not, because they want to achieve something for themself and that's really important to them. It makes you wonder..
Also, the video did not really talk about it, but it mentioned briefly the help that Haiti's been receiving from international organizations and volunteers. To be a worker like that you definately have to be driven to do that kind of work. Seeing that kind of devastation day after day, people dying in front of you, and witnessing other people's living conditions would be difficult and even depressing, not to mention the other emotions they must be experiencing. I'm assuming that a lot of these workers are people that have certain psychological needs that are reasons why they do what they do. They may have the need to help others and achieve at making lives better if possible, or maybe they are driven to get the reward of knowing what they did for someone or are acknowledgement for their deeds. Either way, I think that people's needs determine why people do outstanding things such as volunteering or working on a rescue team.
Overall, the article was interesting and talked about other rescues, not only of Haiti but also other devastations. It's interesting and amazing what people will do to survive.
Does anyone know of any other amazing survival stories or have an opinion on the topic??
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