Sometimes you have to put yourself before others
My son and I were at a hotel recently. The fire alarm went off at 1a.m.; there was an actual fire in the elevator. We were on the ninth floor and everyone exited quickly down the stairwell. At about the sixth floor, however, we were stopped as an extremely overweight woman slowly made her way down. She had two friends with her, but still had to hold on to both railings for support; others were unable to pass. As the lineup became greater, so did anxiety. After she made it down two flights of stairs, upon her friend’s suggestion, she stepped aside on the landing to let everyone pass, very upset and crying. Everyone passed quickly, and my son and I felt really badly. Should we have continued to wait or was it correct to pass her?
The pre-flight drill on airplanes bugs me. They point out the oxygen masks and how, “in the event of a loss of cabin pressure” the masks will plummet mysteriously and dangle in front of your face. Then, the flight attendant intones, “if you are travelling with children or other persons requiring assistance, put your own mask in place before assisting with theirs.”
That always strikes me as, well, kind of crappy. “Sorry, kid, gasp a little longer while I take a good deep breath.”
When you think about it, though, it makes sense.
You can’t help someone else if you’re unconscious yourself. Or, in more general terms, taking care of another person sometimes means you first have to care for yourself. Martyrdom is a noble concept — but with a few historical exceptions, it ends badly.
Of course it felt awful to abandon an upset woman in a burning building. But she already had two helpers and there wasn’t room for anyone else. Staying behind and putting yourself at risk would not only be pointless, but would have added to the congestion when fire personnel arrived.
That doesn’t mean you had no responsibility. When you reached street level, the right course of action would have been to speak to first responders and/or hotel officials, ensuring they knew that there was someone in trouble. Beyond that, however, there was nothing more to do — and therefore no reason to feel guilty.
Your story, however, serves as an important reminder to all of us who stay in hotels.
Everyone is responsible, to a certain extent, for their own safety. Over the years, I’ve had friends with mobility limitations. In most cases, they have insisted on a ground-floor room for exactly the reason you describe: they know they can’t manage stairs and don’t want to place themselves and others in jeopardy. In other situations, disabled friends have accepted an upper floor, but insisted that the front desk rehearse for them the evacuation plan and record the fact that, in the event of an emergency, they would require special assistance to egress the building.
And even we who are astoundingly spry “for our age” need to study that card on the back of the hotel room door. Fires happen and elevators stop working. If you don’t have an escape plan, you contribute to your own demise — and maybe that of others as well. Send your questions to star.ethics@yahoo.ca