Set a good example in tough times

This past week, to Canadian eyes, especially those in Humboldt, Sask., the Vegas Golden Knights earned their shining armour.

At Game 3 of their Western Conference final against the Winnipeg Jets, the Knights hosted the family of the late coach of the Humboldt Broncos, Darcy Haugan, who was among 16 people who died after the team bus collided with a semi-trailer last month en route to a playoff game.

Haugan’s wife, Christina, and sons Carson and Jackson were to spend a week in Las Vegas as guests of the NHL’S newest and most over-achieving franchise. It was the latest act of generosity in the recurring waves of goodness that welled up from across Canada and around the world after both the Humboldt disaster and the van attack in Toronto just weeks later that took the lives of 10 people.

It’s been said the world is a tragedy to those who think, a comedy to those who feel. To that we might add that life plainly offers consolation to those who give. When wildfires hit Fort Mcmurray, Alta., two years ago, help poured in from across Canada.

After the Humboldt crash, a Gofundme page set records in contributions to help the families affected. When the Yonge Street van attack occurred, the response of strangers to victims at the scene was extraordinary and support continues to arrive.

A few years ago, a University of British Columbia researcher put some academic underpinnings to why this might be so. What seems to encourage such generosity are initial reports of others doing something selfless and heroic.

Karl Aquino found a link between a person’s exposure to media accounts of extraordinary virtue and their yearning to pitch in. He concluded that examples of extraordinary goodness reported during crises might be a better way to encourage people to help than images of pain and desperation.

That theory appears to hold in recent tragedies. After it was reported that Humboldt player Logan Boulet, who was killed in the crash, had helped to save six other people by donating his organs, Canadians signed up by the tens of thousands to do the same. Efforts to help have continued to come in ways large and small. Saturday, near the site of the Yonge Street attack, Ashkon Pour-heidary and Andrew Sekhavati offered the sort of instruction that might save lives in future.

Immediately after the van attack, some passersby were able to help victims by using their training in CPR or knowledge in how to apply tourniquets. Afterwards, other untrained citizens expressed regret about not having similar skills.

Enter the two co-owners of Coast2coast First Aid & Aquatics, who had a friend injured in the attack. Pour-heidary and Sekhavati planned to hold a free CPR and first-aid workship in Mel Lastman Square, near the site. To be sure, technology makes it easier to contribute by organizing or by acting on good impulses as they arise.

But, as usual, it might be poetry – in this case Emily Dickinson – that best explains the human motivation that spurs such acts.

“If I can stop one heart from breaking,

I shall not live in vain;

If I can ease one life the aching,

Or cool one pain,

Or help one fainting robin

Unto his nest again,

I shall not live in vain.”