Years ago, I read a book by Amanda Ripley that really made an impact on me. It was about the psychology of folks who’ve survived horrible disasters like plane crashes, earthquakes, and 9/11.
The book is called The Unthinkable: Who Survives When Disaster Strikes – and Why.
Forget all the DIYs and wilderness survival books. Obviously, it’s important to learn about that stuff too, but nothing matters more in a crisis than your response to that crisis.
It honestly changed everything about mental preparedness for me, and I strongly recommend the book.
Ripley, a journalist, researched the aftermath of extreme disasters and spoke to survivors to discover what they had in common.
We have completely different disaster personalities than our everyday personalities. Some are helpful, and some are absolutely not helpful.
There are different stages of acceptance when a crisis occurs, and how rapidly you process those stages can be the difference between life and death.
The question here is: Who will you be?
Have you ever been in a life-threatening emergency?
Have you experienced a life-threatening crisis like the ones in the book? If so, were you surprised – or perhaps – disappointed – with your own response?
If you weren’t happy with how you reacted, don’t despair. You can improve your crisis personality and your responses to emergencies. It requires a lot of personal study, education, and effort, but will be worth its weight in gold when you need it.
Have you read this book? Do you have an experience you could share with us? Let’s discuss it in the comments section.
16 Responses
Sheeple responses, is generally what she is talking about. At about the 6 min mark, she talks about an alert, prepared individual and their response. No real delay, no denial, etc. They preplanned for the scenario. once it occurred they moved ahead with the plan.
This shows that you should be observant at all times and have a plan for possible scenarios that you might face. This will reduce denial and speed up the reaction time.
Something she does not seem to factor in, in group interactions, is sex. We see this in the Men vs Women Survival challenges. The Women took a lot longer to get anything done, (if it ever got done), by trying to find a group consensus before acting. Groups of Men tended to organize quickly and get right to getting things done. In Mixed sex groups this could also create delays and problems based upon cultural norms. In a survival scenario this would be part of the denial and delay in response times. Probably, the lack of strong of Alpha or Sigma personalities would affect group response times. So a lot of factors were not well covered in the video.
Some people are better at this than others. Even among those having the same training. Such as in Military, Fire and Police personnel. So I am not sure that this can be learned, to some extent it can, but some of it is in our biology.
Bet Daisy and my wife would beg to differ.
If you read my comment you will see I agree. I have never met anyone who thinks faster than me in a huge emergency. Military guys or anyone who saw a lot of action come to mind.
I’ve seen more men standing around waiting for leadership than I care to recall. Useless. “What do I do, Sarge?”
This guy talks a good game. Lots of buzzword bingo jargon. People who overthink are the ones voiding their bladders inappropriately in emergencies. Just saying.
My mother was a Marine Sgt. Dad a combat engineer husband Marine/paramedic/Fire captain. Me- well suited to the streets of Miami.
I’ve seen both men and women react well or badly to potential danger. I’m not sure it has anything to do with their gender; more personal headset and/or training.
Thank you for finding this video! I’ve read the book several times, and I am due for another read through. I know I usually ‘freak out’ about emergencies, so I find the more I read about it – especially in a thoughtful fashion – the calmer I can be, just as Amanda Ripley brings out. The closest emergency situation I’ve been in was in late 2018 we had a big quake – I was taking an online course with YOU, we talked about it! You mentioned how everyone was so polite :). In that instance, I was responsible for getting a couple of my students to safety. I think that is what helped me keep my act together – being responsible for someone else.
Good points. As I mentioned thinking about what you might do generally and reading books where you can identify with the character or put yourself in the book are very good for civilian preparation.. Knowing what you will take with you and having a list saves a ton of time.
I have read three such books. This one is on my bookshelf within touching distance from my chair. I have found that I face crazy situations almost immediately. I would be one who leads others out of disaster. In fact, that is one of the reasons I read this site–to get the info needed to act quickly, and to help others.
This is a sobering, but an enlightening video. I know that as I age, (60+) my response time is a lot slower. Daisy you have helped me put that into perspective and this video also is a great help!
I have not read this book, but I will. Thanks for the article, reminder and the video.
I’ve been in a couple of earthquakes. Not counting little ones. The first one was rather soft, epicenter fairly far away, it felt about the same as a mild earthquake until I realized that it was taking longer than usual. The building I was in was designed to withstand earthquakes, so I wasn’t worried. The second major one was closer, about the same strength, but again about the only thing to do was to hang on until it stopped. There was no damage, nothing fell off the shelves where I was. We went back to work until the electricity failed. The scariest part was at night—we could see the glow of a major fire, but none of us had a working radio, so we didn’t know how close was that fire nor whether or not we needed to evacuate. Phone service didn’t come back for a week.
Lessons learned: get a radio that doesn’t need to be plugged in to work, preferably a two way radio (Ham) to be able to communicate.
Sometimes too much knowledge could be a danger. If I were in the Twin Towers, I could very well have been a victim. I knew the buildings were designed to take a direct hit from an airliner and survive. But who would have expected that those buildings were wired up for demolition and that someone would pull the trigger while there were still thousands of people in the buildings? Not I. (No, I’m not part of the Truther Movement—they are trying to find the whodunnit. I have no idea whodunnit and won’t waste time in fruitless speculation. I just know enough about engineering that the signs of deliberate demolition are obvious.)
Knowing what to expect and readiness to act correctly are very important in survival. Preparedness, having things set up in such a way that facilitates deliberate action helps. And don’t do stupid things.
My having a background of being a Professional Firefighter and Paramedic. It is a known fact that about 90% of the people that enter a building, and then a crises happens, such as a building fire, these same 90% will all try to go back out the same set of doors they originally came into, instead of looking for an alternate side door FIRE Exit. Look for the LIGHTED EXIT SIGN ABOVE THE DOORS> That’s Fire Code. This herd mentality phenomenon created fire laws, such as door panic hardware that doors will swing outwards to the outside. So many people have died in a fire where they are all piled up on top of each other just inside the exit doors since, that is the door they came in originally. Its the Stampede affect. Also in a fire, it is the Smoke that kills most people, and not the actual fire. And since smoke rises upwards a fire, it is best to crawl on your hands and knees where the cooler fresher air is, and you can see your way out of the building to safety. Personally I will say, most people get hurt or die due to their own stupidity or carelessness. Thus the natural culling of the dumb and stupid happens first. If you are reading this article out of curiosity or reading my comments here, you are most likely in the top 10% that will survive. Stay safe y’all. Life is brutal. Get off the X. Do not follow the 90% of the herd off the cliff in a crisis.
I just requested the book from the library.
That being said, I have been in many, many major, life threatening situations. From 4 cat 5 hurricanes (and about 20 others of lessor category), to blizzards, major storms sailing on the Atlantic, fights, gun fights…well, you get the idea. I was law enforcement in Miami. We lived off the grid 6-9 months for 22 years.
First of all, there are people who are suited to the creative, quick thinking required in emergent life-death situations. Sadly, I have a lot of practice. Not sure now what would surprise me. Practice does help. Prior training gives a good start.
My advice to those who do not, thankfully, have the “opportunity” I had to push to those limits a bunch of time….Read books. One Second After is a great start. You get into the story and absorb what the characters experience. Light’s Out is another fine one. If Daisy recommends a book, I’m in…as I said I ordered this one in. You can find most all of them for free at the library.
DO think about what you would take if you had 30 minutes to load up and go. Write a list. When you are in full adrenaline mode, you want automatic response. It needs to fit in your vehicle. Prioritize.
Good luck to you all. You can do this! I’m a small female.
Marine ReCon, Navy Seals, Special Forces… Yes, it takes perseverance and physical strength to succeed.
But what gets taught, through repetition, is the ability to control oneself when acid starts dripping into your stomach and the adrenaline hits your fingertips. Unless one is trained in self-control there is no telling what you will or will not do in an emergency. If you only get punched once you will likely avoid that situation in the future. If you get punched repeatedly over time a punch becomes nothing to fear. I would argue caution for anyone person who believes they will be the one to maintain self-discipline in an emergency.
I read that book a number of years ago. I only recall finding it interesting but not the details. I guess I’ve been in some potentially life threatening situations- building fire, blizzards, ice storms and the like. People definitely react differently in these situations.
As well I’ve been subjected to ongoing rocket/missile/suicide drone attacks for months at a time, several times a day. To me this is very educational as to the nature of how people handle danger. People react very differently to these. Some just seem resigned to their fate and remain out in the open or in unsafe apartments. Some refuse to put apps on their phones for alerts and try to ignore incoming rockets! Some are quick to react to the sirens and make it to the best shelter possible. Some don’t seem to be able to sort out potential shelter options when they find themselves out on the street. Some panic and get hurt running. Some move so slowly that they’d be hit by the missiles or shrapnel if it did hit their area. I suspect the variety of reactions to this runs the gamut of how people react to potential danger.
A good example to me would be that when a suicide(explosive) drone alert siren sounded in a neighbouring community to a preschool , a teacher immediately brought all the kids in from the playground into a “safe room “ even though no alert had yet sounded in their community. Shortly after, the drone hit the playground and school without an alert ever sounding there. Thanks to her caution, everyone was safe even though the playground sustained damage. Kids would have been killed and injured if not for her actions.
On the other hand, if an alert doesn’t sound in a specific community there are teachers, community members etc who ignore the explosions of rockets being intercepted overhead, carrying on whatever they were doing, because their phone doesn’t say it’s happening here!
So I’ve gotten to know quite well the gamut of responses possible to emergencies. Really helps to know how adults responsible for your children would react btw. You definitely want people like that preschool teacher caring for them!
By the way I’m a female, raised 4 adventurous kids, open and ran a K- 12 mission school for 25 years and been through enough violence and craziness for several lifetimes. I’ll be 78 this month.
I wrote a longer reply that seems to have vanished. I have been through a major earthquake, a house fire, a broken arm I set with the help of a husband, delivered my 8 lb bottom first breach baby at home, tended to bad burns taped up bad cuts, sat with the dying, done CPR and seen it work…. Not sure if I pray better than I do CPR but something worked. I’ve taken charge and given orders like I knew what I was doing and it worked. Not saying I couldn’t freeze up the next time but something worked so far. It’s just something that kicks in without too much planning.
I do think training helps. Reading stories and prepper books helps. For one employer I took a German designed deescalation class to calm dangerous situations by both words and staying calm. Taking the time to think about a good to go bag and what would you need and want if you have to leave quickly.
The current list of things left in the LA fires that people wish for and things they must replace like paperwork are a good starting point if you aren’t fully ready to grab and run.
I grew up with Cali wildfires. I now live in another dangerous wildfire state. My bag has copies of deeds, titles, policies of many kinds. A few tiny momentos. And nessessary things like snacks and clothing and a way to heat food or water. My fiancé has never prepared such a bag although his daughter has told him several times to do it. I now have a new back pack ready to start packing for him or with him. I got a sample pack of toothbrush, tooth paste, and mouthwash from his dentist on one of his recent visits. That will go in. I have some more paperwork to go in mine. And I pack different than most I use baking soda for tooth paste, deodorant, hair rinse, ect.
I packed a medical bag but I need to pack or grab on the way out- his prescriptions. I do natural meds and zero perscriptions but I’d sure like to have some of my oils and infusions. For that purpose I’ve purchased 100 tiny bottles. No I don’t need so many oils but I may pack up more containers of onion, garlic, Tumeric, ect that I’d want as meds and seasonings. I sold my 3 room camping tent but I have a 3 man tent packed. My ham radios and set of walkie talkies are handy to grab and he has a ham radio in every vehicle he drives. I have rechargeable batteries and a solar charger. My flashlights and camp lantern are all rechargeables. I even have a DYI camping solar generator with extra lights, charging station ect. We have a beautiful camp trailer fully stocked if there is time to hook up. Reading about how fast the fires were in peoples yards or homes before warnings came is thought provoking. With sufficient time I’d want our two dogs and my 14 chickens with their feed barrel and largest waterer.
It’s amazing the info out there to help us prepare. And prepare for what. Grab and go, lay low and stay put, cached items out there. Prepared for? War, riots, attacks, collapse, fires, ????
Go where ? A son in a big city? a son in a rural place? one of our properties? A child in an other state? The mountain? Friends? Trust whom? Trailer or tent? Carry food? forage? So many contingencies to plan for.