Sky Views: Astounding acts of kindness in face of adversity
Sunday 5 August 2018 13:06, UK
Greg Milam, US Correspondent
Feel in need of something uplifting in these strange and troubling times?
Let me tell you about what happened in the midst of the devastating California wildfires last week.
Among the roughly one thousand homes destroyed in the massive Carr Fire near the city of Redding were those of 67 people who work at one hospital.
And, despite that, every single one of them - doctors, nurses, volunteers, office staff - showed up for work.
"Some people have literally been sleeping on the floor," the hospital chief executive told KTVU. "Patient care has not suffered."
The police chief of Redding lost his home too, as did two of his officers, and they showed up for duty to save others at risk. It was a similar story with at least one firefighter.
They were doing their job, you might say, as professional emergency services should.
But it wasn't just the thousands of first responders who put their own loss and devastation to one side and stepped up to help their neighbours.
Plenty of ordinary folks came together: taking in people who had lost homes, providing food, donating supplies, offering support. In short, being a community.
It was moving, inspiring and - with all that we know of the division and nastiness in today's society - very heartening.
It used to be thought that humans faced with disaster would panic, a fight-flight-freeze myth fuelled by any number of Hollywood movies showing society falling apart. But, increasingly, researchers are finding that the opposite happens, that in times of crisis people want to band together and help.
So, how would you react in similar circumstances? Forced to run for your life from a fire that was about to take everything you own, having to re-build from scratch.
How many of us would think of others in times like that?
In Houston last year, I saw some of the most astounding acts of kindness and generosity in the face of terrible loss.
People wading neck-deep in murky flood water putting themselves at risk to rescue stranded people and pets from their homes.
It used to be thought that humans faced with disaster would panic, a fight-flight-freeze myth fuelled by any number of Hollywood movies showing society falling apart.
But, increasingly, researchers are finding that the opposite happens, that in times of crisis people want to band together and help.
Is it because we're good people? Is it because we want to feel helpful? Are we trying to take our minds off the terrible reality? Or do we want to be a hero?
Whatever it is, of all the challenges Americans are facing right now, there is no shortage of spirit in the face of adversity.
Sky Views is a series of comment pieces by Paste BN editors and correspondents, published every morning.
Previously on Sky Views: Tom Cheshire - China is not a good role model for a post-Brexit UK