Miracle???
A man was walking to his houseboat on Washington DC's Southwest waterfront Monday night when he skidded and fell into the Channel - the icy cold Potomac river. He couldn't pull himself out, and he felt the water sapping the warmth and the strength from his body. He'd given up hope when he saw three homeless men walking past, on the other side of a fence. He called for help, and two of them helped the third to climb the fence and then ran for help. The third man wasn't able to hoist the victim out of the steep channel either, but he held on until the a harbor patrol officer got there. The patrol officer, boosted over the fence by the two men, helped the third guy pull the hypothermic victim - still in the hospital today - out of the water. He watched as the ambulance arrived, and then he left. The victim would certainly have died without him.
I was feeling warm myself as I read this story, till I reached the last sentence:
"It was a miracle that those guys would come over the fence to help," [the victim] said. "It was a miracle that they were even there."WTF?
Now, I'm not quibbling about the promiscuous use of "miracle" here. You want to believe it's a miracle that three men are homeless and wander near the harbor on freezing cold nights - and that they happened to wander past this dying man at the right moment - okay. Maybe it is. Maybe it is a miracle that someone came along to save this guy.
But what is with that "It was a miracle that those guys would come over the fence to help"?
Why is that a miracle?
Because homeless people aren't ... what? Brave? Caring? Human?
I mean, really. What was that man thinking?
Labels: freethought
4 Comments:
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At 10:39 AM, January 26, 2007
Barry Leiba had this to say...
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At 8:31 PM, January 27, 2007
The Ridger, FCD had this to say...
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At 11:44 PM, January 28, 2007
Barry Leiba had this to say...
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At 5:35 AM, January 29, 2007
The Ridger, FCD had this to say...
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<-- Older Post ^ Home Newer Post -->Well, you don't link to the article, but nothing you quoted made me think that the victim thought the "miracle" had to do with the homelessness of his helpers. I think he just considers it a miracle that people in general were willing to go to all the trouble of boosting each other over the fence, staying with him, going and getting more able help, whatever.
They went to some effort to help him and, while one hopes that anyone would do the same, there's at least a perception that it's exceptional people who do that. There's also the "miracle" that anyone happened by at all — the victim could easily have been found floating lifelessly in the morning.
When the guy saved a man who had a seizure and fell on the tracks in the NYC subway (as highlighted in the SotU address), I initially thought, "It's great that he did that, but why are they making such a big deal? I'd have done the same." And then I heard the details — that he didn't just get the guy off the tracks, which I'd have done too... but he lay atop the man, holding them both flat to the ground while the train ran harmlessly over them. There's not a chance that I'd have done that, nor even thought to.
I guess the point of that last paragraph is that the level of help one can expect to get from others varies greatly... and I think the victim in your story was just expressing amazement at his luck that people came by and were willing to do what it took to save him. Homeless or not.
Perhaps you're right - that the comment was directed at people generally. I hope so.
ps - the article is linked, though not in the text; do the title and the 'link to reference article' links not come through in rss or something?
Ah, yes, that's right: the title links don't show up in the feed... the title in the feed links to your entry, and then I have to remember to use the title from there to get to what you're linking. Which is the same as it would be if I looked at the blog directly.
More to the point, I guess it's a usability issue with Blogger and the title links: one has to know that you use the title to link to what your entry is about. The only way I know to tell that is to put the cursor over it and see what URL appears in the status line of the browser. 's a bit too subtle for my taste (which is why I don't use the title links, and instead link to the item with an explicit link in the body).
I'll just remember that you do the title links, and I'll look for them.
Well, I very often use both, and it's not much trouble to remember to do so all the time if it's easier for readers. Thanks for the heads-up!
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