Putting others first can cost lives in disasters, study finds
First, secure yourself and then you can save lives, computer modelling shows
WATERLOO REGION — Say the unthinkable happens. You’re caught up in a life-and-death disaster. What do you do?
Don’t be a selfless hero. Get yourself to safety before thinking about rescuing others. It’s smart because when the worst happens, it keeps the most people alive.
So says the dean of disaster, a University of Waterloo researcher who did the math after imagining a terrible flood in a real-life subway station.
“In a very critical situation, people should try to save themselves first,” said Eishiro Higo, who’s completing a PhD in civil engineering. “And then if they feel they can handle helping others, they can do that.”
Higo, 29, is from Japan. He was there in 2011, researching evacuation and rescue, when an earthquake and tsunami killed up to 18,500. It appalled him, making him more determined to pursue his research.
“After the disaster I was interested in how we have to behave,” he said. Now he’s in Waterloo pondering situations almost all of us will never face.
There’s a lot of math in the latest research that Higo led. The numbers in the study illuminate an essential human question: how to behave when your life is at stake. What’s reckless? What’s brave? What’s foolhardy? What’s smart?
To find out, he modelled a fictional flood at a real underground mall and subway station, three levels deep in the centre of Kyoto, Japan. It imagined the nearby Kamo River overflowing, flooding the deepest basement level first, drowning stairs and creating bottlenecks for evacuation. Into this peril he placed adults and senior citizens who have to reach safety by staircases to the surface.
Higo ran many simulations mixing space, people, and three strategies: one in which people worried only about themselves, one in which people worked together as a group right away, and one in which the strongest reached a safe place before trying to rescue others using a rope.
In a minor emergency, banding together right away can work, he says. But in the severe disaster he imagined, the rope strategy typically kept the most people alive.
For example, he repeatedly modelled 30 people threatened by the flood. When the strongest saved themselves before trying to help others, a dozen survived. By either of the other strategies, only five survived.
The lesson: when the strong try to help the weak before securing themselves, all are dragged down.
Simple rescue tools or features such as ropes, handrails and resting areas help people survive, the study shows. Higo wants planners to take heed.
He hopes his research will help save lives if disaster strikes, because preparedness is the key to surviving. “If people have considered what to do in that situation before, they can do better in a real disaster,” he said.