A Fire at Friday’s
August 15, 2008 at 1:55 PM |
7 comments
There is an unexpected irony that comes with publishing a book. You spend years scouring the Earth for stories; then the book comes out, and the stories start coming to you.
All summer, people from all over the world have been sending me unforgettable stories of human behavior in near-death experiences. Some of these stories arrived in private email messages that I can’t share; others are embedded in the comments on this site; and many more are floating in the ether, in blogs, articles and on TV. Check out this TV News segment that aired last night, from an ABC affiliate in Phoenix, AZ. They did a nice job with the book, and they also found a classic story of delay and denial.
Pedro Algorta said on August 20, 2008 at 4:11 pm
Good work Amanda. We all have to learn a lot from disasters. I think it helps in every aspects of our life.
We allways have to make decisions and take chances.
I survived a plane crash and I talk about it in my blog: http://www.survivorwalk.blospot.com
Let me know what you think about it.
My regards.
Pedro
Tom Lamb said on August 20, 2008 at 5:17 pm
What a fascinating book! Its not normally the sort of thing I would read but from the moment I read an extract of it, I was hooked.
With just the right balance story-to-science ratio, it didn’t go overboard with the psychology element either.
I have never been involved in a ‘disaster’ and, touch wood, I never will. However I was interested by the notion that people do not take fire drills properly. Here is a brief outline of my experience of fire drills at my halls of residence at Loughborough University in the UK in 2004….
The fire regulations state that everyone must take part in an early morning drill at least once a semester. When the alarm goes off, everyone should evacuate and the warden checks all the rooms to ensure that all resident have complied.
But here’s the problem – in all the times I saw fire engines responding to the alarms on campus, did I ever see a real fire. Furthermore students, on return from the Students Union, pubs and clubs, can’t toast bread or smoke without setting off the sensitive alarms.
Thus we have a situation where we have regular practices combined with many accidental set-offs. Therefore whenever the alarm does sound, no one take it seriously (apart from the university staff and wardens).
As an example of this, an acquaintance, who had just got back from a long alcohol fuelled night out in town, was woken up by a practice drill. He decided he would rather say in his room rather than go outside into the cold night to the meeting point. Instead he got out of bed and climbed into his wardrobe where he was found fast asleep by the Warden with the alarm still ringing loudly!
Regards
Tom
P.S Having read the book, I will always pay attention to safety announcements!
Lamar Cason said on August 21, 2008 at 9:51 pm
Ms. Ripley —
I just finished Unthinkable - a masterly job. A small quibble about the Air Florida disaster. While it is true that the accumulated fuselage ice was a contributing factor, the airplane probably would have survived if the pilots had not neglected to use the engine ground anti-ice procedure. Ice on engine probes caused an erroneously high reading in the engine pressure ratio (EPR) gages. Since the pilots normally use these to set the throttles, the airplane went into the Potomac without full takeoff thrust ever having been applied. One change the crash brought about was for the pilots to compute and monitor the rpm gages as a backup on takeoff in inclement weather.
Cheers,
Lamar Cason
Retired captain (PanAm and Delta)
Patricia Hutchings said on August 22, 2008 at 1:50 pm
Iv just finished Unthinkable, it is brilliant. I read it cover to cover in under two days. As I’m really interested in Survival Psychology, its now covered in many pencil marks for further reference. It is in top three of my list of books on the subject.
It has taught me a great deal about my anxiety and given me a lot of clues how to work with it.
Thanks for a brilliant book
Patricia
UK
Documents Management said on November 11, 2008 at 8:53 am
Fire is a unpredictable thing . In any moment it can held.. There is lot of things to learn from disasters. Thanks Amanda for share this post
Lingerie said on November 22, 2008 at 5:42 am
Good piece of writing Amanda, some time disaster teach us right things what actually we do at the right time. Fire is useful in every day activity but miss use is destroy us. We should mind it and deal good job with our life.
Thanks again to share with us.
Joko Suyanto said on May 18, 2009 at 12:23 pm
we have plenty of near death experiences everyday.....and you don’t notice it because it happens too often
for example, when you are in high speed driving near a big truck.
It only takes a slight arm movement to get you killed disastrously