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How to Escape a Sinking Ship

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Re: How to Escape a Sinking Ship

#111

Post by Cthulhu_ »

Scoundreller wrote: post #83
pfarrell wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Step 1: don’t burn bridges. Even in Silicon Valley, you are likely work with these people again. Step 2: make sure you have contact info for the best and brightest and they have yours Step 3: contact any recent people who left. They may be hiring at their new gig Step 4: make sure you have submitted all your reimbursable expenses Step 5: if the company starts to list, get to the high side, fast. (Couldn’t resist :)

Step somewhere: get all your dental work done, a new pair of glasses and as much prescription meds as you can.

And vote for the politicians who want to pull the country into this century when it comes to medical expenses and policies.

Mind you, my dental work is only covered up until €500 a year, glasses are entirely my own expense (you can get a tiny amount from health insurance, but only once every three years, and you need to take out premium insurance to be eligible), and prescription meds vary; anything off the pre-approved list require you to pay the difference.

Re: How to Escape a Sinking Ship

#112

Post by tobyhinloopen »

_Microft wrote: post #93
dheera wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More like follow your instinct like a cat would.

You mean ... tensing up and inching closer to the perceived threat? ;)

Or just sitting down on the middle of the street staring at a car’s bumper while the car is honking.

It’s a wonder my cat is still alive.

Re: How to Escape a Sinking Ship

#113

Post by rapnie »

secabeen wrote: post #13

Somewhat tongue in cheek, but still some good advice here: -- Know your surroundings, specifically where your exits are. The nearest exit may be behind you. -- Break the rules. Officials may try to deter you from using passages, ladders or stairwells. Ignore them. If you need to kick open a door or pick a lock, do it. -- Be where the well-connected people are, and look/act the part. Try to blend into the tribe, be a…

What I found really disturbing is the 'flight or fright' reaction of people that find themselves in these life or death situations. We all think we will act to save our lives, acting rationally, but apparently there's many people that just freeze in shock, unable to move or do anything even when their lives depend on it.

Think I first saw this in a sunken ferry disaster movie, based on real events, where the family says to the son something like "You go, boy", while they stayed to drown with the ship. Really scary.

Re: How to Escape a Sinking Ship

#114

Post by 3pt14159 »

s5300 wrote: post #108
3pt14159 wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very few people internalize the OODA loop. I've reacted fast in situations and it saved lives, but I wasn't born that way. I had trained for years as a kid in a program literally called Life Savers[0] which taught swimming in contexts where others are drowning, first aid including CPR, and how to react in situations like burning buildings and downed electrical lines. One of the first things they tell you is that untr…

Yeah, I grew up with a hobby that basically entailed... extreme hypervigilance, quick decision making, and leadership initiative. Seems to have ingrained itself deeply within me having participated in it somewhat religiously from 10-18. Sometimes I regret it a bit as it's made me pretty much always alert/hyperaware of my surroundings.

Haha, yeah I know what you mean. It also makes it hard to be a passenger in a car with an inattentive or distracted driver.

Re: How to Escape a Sinking Ship

#115

Post by camillomiller »

dmitriid wrote: post #103
tdeck wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an extreme example I'm reminded of this south korean ferry disaster where 304 passengers died: > As Sewol began sinking, the ferry's intercom system started ordering the passengers to stay put, alleging that moving was dangerous. The announcements were made by a communication officer, Kang Hae-seong, who had not consulted the manual before the broadcast. The announcements began broadcasting by at least 8:52 a.m. a…

It's a well-known issue in some countries: authorities are never questioned even if the decisions are obviously wrong. For Korea, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_Air_Cargo_Flight_8509#I...

Which might also explain why they beat Covid faster and more effectively, on the other hand.

Re: How to Escape a Sinking Ship

#116

Post by trhway »

secabeen wrote: post #13

Somewhat tongue in cheek, but still some good advice here: -- Know your surroundings, specifically where your exits are. The nearest exit may be behind you. -- Break the rules. Officials may try to deter you from using passages, ladders or stairwells. Ignore them. If you need to kick open a door or pick a lock, do it. -- Be where the well-connected people are, and look/act the part. Try to blend into the tribe, be a…

That is very well applies to the situation when a a societal ship sinks, like say collapse of USSR and the socialist system. Probably also applies in the context of civil wars, ethnic conflicts, etc.

Re: How to Escape a Sinking Ship

#117

Post by Kiro »

camillomiller wrote: post #115
dmitriid wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a well-known issue in some countries: authorities are never questioned even if the decisions are obviously wrong. For Korea, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_Air_Cargo_Flight_8509#I...

Which might also explain why they beat Covid faster and more effectively, on the other hand.

They haven't beaten Covid. Their current curve is quickly approaching the spring numbers, expected to hit the February peak next week.

https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/1...

Re: How to Escape a Sinking Ship

#118

Post by gregoriol »

Spooky23 wrote: post #25
paleotrope wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Break the rules. Officials may try to deter you from using passages, ladders or stairwells. Ignore them. If you need to kick open a door or pick a lock, do it." I would say that in general, when a ship is in danger of sinking, hatches are closed and dogged off for a reason, usually to control flooding, so this is a really bad advice. On the other hand, when a hatch is secured, you usually can't open it from one side…

Whats bad for the whole might be better for you. People in the WTC were told to chill out, no worries, all is well. Screw that — if something hits the fan, I will gtfo.

People in Grenfell tower in UK were also told to shelter in place, that sadly didn't work very well...

Those procedures (plane evacuations, high-rises, ...) are designed for "best" conditions, when an emergency goes by the plan; but when something goes really wrong (plane breaks in two, huge building fire, ...), you better get out of there by any means.

Re: How to Escape a Sinking Ship

#119

Post by willyt »

orev wrote: post #69
smogcutter wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Break the rules. Officials may try to deter you from using passages, ladders or stairwells. Ignore them. If you need to kick open a door or pick a lock, do it. I learned this lesson on 9/11, as a high school student in lower Manhattan. We were told to sit in our homerooms and wait, while smoke (and god knows what else) enveloped the building. Eventually we were shuffled out of the building and told to keep going nor…

In a situation like that, you only have a choice between really bad options. If everyone ran for the door, people would likely have been hurt or killed due to trampling. If everyone panics, you are guaranteed to have a bad outcome. In your case, staying in place might have allowed the dust to (literally) settle by the time you left the building. Obviously the people in the 2nd tower had a different outcome.

Yes. The worst civilian loss of life in Britain in WW2 was a crush that occurred at Bethnal Green station on a stairway down to an air raid shelter. A woman tripped and fell on the stair and people above carried on pushing to get down and the bodies piled up. 173 people died. There wasn’t even a stampede. I think that’s why we have the shelter in place rule for fires in the U.K. In more modern buildings there is a staged evacuation which is done automatically by the fire alarm system where it sets off alarms to evacuate the fire floor, then the floor above, then floor below then all the floors above the fire at intervals followed by all the floors below. In an office block with 5000 people in it you wouldn’t need much to recreate the Bethnal Green disaster no matter how much stair capacity you have. In Grenfel the staged evacuation was meant to be done manually by the fire brigade as it was a 1960’s building with no whole building alarm system but for some reason this happened too slowly. Possibly because the escape stair was not pressurised as would be required by modern regulations and the smoke seals on fire doors had been compromised during the refit and smoke got into the stair so the fire brigade felt they needed BA to evacuate people safely from the stairs, I’m not sure.

So if everyone in the ship or the building or plane or whatever acts entirely in their own interests in almost all situations it ends up worse for everyone, but there has to be some leadership somewhere and the systems need to be checked and practiced regularly.

Re: How to Escape a Sinking Ship

#120

Post by Radim »

mauvehaus wrote: post #22

The Atlantic'a piece about the sinking of the ferry Estonia contains some interesting pieces of information for anybody who might like to survive a sinking in the future. It might also put you off getting on ships. https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2004/05/a-sea-s...

Chilling quote:

> Thiger heard a clear comment from only one passenger, a man nearby, who joked, "Ha! Now we have sailed against an iceberg!" and took another gulp of beer. The singing continued unabated.

Surely, this couldn't be happening to us!

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