When disaster strikes, we become all too familiar with our most basic instincts. For many people, the classic fight-or-flight response holds true and if there’s nobody to fight, they’re guaranteed to head for the door.
Others are known to freeze up as the chaos unfolds and I’ve learned to my disappointment that my natural response tends to fall in this category.
But for a rare few, fleeing or freezing up isn’t an option. If they know they’re not the only ones in danger, they’re more inclined to go towards it to help those who need it rather than run away.
And the full video provides a powerful glimpse of this type of person in action.
The video begins with what seems like an average day for a team of nurses working in a South Korean hospital’s neo-natal ward.
Some are keeping an eye on the babies in the cribs, while others sit on the couches to feed and otherwise care for the ones who need attention.
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What they didn’t know was that they were about to experience one of the largest earthquakes South Korea has ever experienced.
As The Guardian reported , the 5.5 magnitude quake mostly struck the city of Pohang and caused 70 injuries and “millions” of dollars of damage.
Researchers in Scotland, Switzerland, and Germany suspect that nearby hydraulic fracking had a role in the earthquake.
According to The Guardian , their suspicions were raised by the fact that the main shock of the quake occurred less than a mile from a plant where fracking was taking place.
The shocks also happened at depths ranging between 1.8 and 4.3 miles underground.
These are both unusually shallow for earthquakes in the area and at similar depths to the fracking.
Now, the typical response to natural disasters is often complete chaos and the inclination to save oneself.
Which leads us to believe the actions took by these nurses were conscious, and extremely brave decisions — not a gut reaction.
When the earthquake struck, all the nurses knew was that it was happening and they were all in danger.
Still, none of them hesitated to try and secure the cribs as best they could. They held them together to minimize how much the tremors affected the babies.
Before long, other nurses ran for the ward to back up the neo-natal team.
The team had every intention of joining efforts to evacuate the hospital, but there was something they needed to do first.
They were obviously going to take the babies with them, but this required an extra step.
As Metro reported, the nurses put on special harnesses to ensure the infants would be strapped as securely to them as possible.
It’s unclear where this hospital was or what happened to those involved, but it’s safe to say that they did everything right.
But since no deaths were reported as a result of the earthquake, it’s fairly safe to assume that both the babies and the nurses got out relatively safely.
As you might have guessed, responses to the full video carried the common theme of being impressed by the nurses’ courage.
As Metro reported , one commenter said, “I love how they don’t waste time protecting those children. Nurses are real life superheroes.”
Another wrote, “I mean, it doesn’t matter what you do for a living – self-preservation will still kick in.”
“These nurses just kicked that concept out of the window. Hats off to people like them. Not sure I’d be able to do that if we switched places.”
