Us humans never really think about catastrophes or tragedies until they actually happen to us or to someone we love. We always live life thinking everything will be perfect and nothing really bad is going to happen when in reality sometimes is not like this. When something like this happens humans often go through a series of steps which involve: stress, fear, paralysis, denial, and after a long-time, acceptance. The feelings of fear and stress often make us panic and don’t let us think clearly and that is when the disaster really happens.
These ideas are explained in the book “The Unthinkable: Who survives when disaster strikes and how can we do better” by Amanda Ripley. This book focuses on how people react in the face of disasters and her goal is to understand what people do before, during and after such events, and to help more of us survive them. She explains and gives examples of people who have been through these experiences including: earthquakes, plane crashes, bomb attacks, floods, and shootings. She analyses how they react and how this affects the outcome of the situation. First of all, when someone encounters this kind of situation usually the first reaction is stress and fear. Fear and stress interfere with the part of our brain that handles complex thinking. When we are scared, we often lose the ability to solve problems. Certain situational factors can turn fear into panic, but, far more often, can turn it into paralysis. This paralysis can affect how a person handles the situation and can cause a disaster which comes with denial.
When I read the section called “Paralysis”, I remembered an event that once happened to my mom. This section tells a little story that talks about a shooting in which a boy panicked and paralyzed as he saw and heard his classmates getting shot. He went through the process of stress, fear, paralysis and denial. First, he describes how he could not think clearly because of stress and fear. Then, he describes how he was in denial of what was happening: “This is not what I think it is, is it?… It’s probably construction”. After this, he describes how he paralyzed and panicked, and he just couldn’t handle the situation: “But as soon as I saw the gun come in, I just froze”. He started to overthink and got the idea that if he moved, he was going to get shot.
The same way my mother went through a lot of work struggles she also went through a lot of life struggles. When she was fifteen her father was shot in front of her and this tragedy caused her great suffering through her life. She told me her dad got into some money problems with some people and since he didn’t pay them back for a long time, they decided to kill him. They were at their house having dinner when 3 men barged in with guns and started to scream that if my grandfather didn’t pay them at that instant, he was going to shoot his whole family and him. My mom told me that at that moment she had so much stress and fear she couldn’t move. She panicked in a way that didn’t let her think straight, she just stood there without movement. She had the same reaction as the boy in the reading and actually thought that if she moved, they were all going to get shot instantly, so she just froze. Her dad told the men he didn’t have the money but that I if they were going to kill somebody that please just let it be him. Without thinking about it, they shot him, killed him, and left the house. My mom told me that when this happened, she just looked straight at him for 5 minutes, paralyzed and without saying a word. She then started to whisper “no…no…no…. this is not happening…”, she was in absolute denial. All this made her suffer for a lot of years until she finally accepted it and made peace with herself. With all this, I realized these steps people go through during a disaster really happen and affect the outcome of the situation. We should all be aware of them so if something goes wrong, we will try to act our best to try and solve the problem or avoid it after it really happens. Like the Ripley says: “We should all create a statistically derived ranking of the hazards we actually face and a smart plan for dealing with them”
Ripley, A. (2008). The unthinkable: Who survives when disaster strikes and how we can do better. New York: Crown.
Bon voyage 