Crises Show Character

Regardless of their time, place or circumstance, crises show character. In the worst of moments, people either rise to the occasion or fall prey to it. Nowhere has this been on better display than in Thailand, where the rescue efforts brought a youth soccer team and their coach from the depths of a remote, flooded rocky cave. With a multi-dimensional team of Thai special forces, and engineering, geological, healthcare and emergency management counterparts from around the world, an unprecedented rescue turned the eyes of the world to the jungle border between Myanmar and Thailand.

The only thing that comes close to comparing to the events of the past few weeks are the other mindboggling rescues that freed the trapped miners in Chile (2010) and Pennsylvania (2002). In these cases, and others, the busy world stopped to gaze upon the incredible assembly of people working together nonstop to make the most improbable of rescues possible. With flashing lights, emergency vehicles and rescue personnel in action round-the-clock, and camera crews and reporters from around the world recording every second of it, you didn’t have to speak or understand the language of the people on the ground to feel and understand the tension they were enduring.

Every ticking minute was a minute of losing oxygen, increasing health risks to those trapped and rising dangers to the rescuers who were doing everything they could to succeed. But in this rescue, the most vulnerable included children.

This entire post is available at HSToday at https://www.hstoday.us/subject-matter-areas/emergency-preparedness/perspective-thai-crisis-shows-character-will-instruct-future-rescues/.