Rescue

There is probably nothing more thrilling to the average reader than the idea of somebody being saved or rescued from something terrible. I have just seen part of a video in which a woman is apparently trapped in her car which has been swept off in the middle of a raging flood. A man, who is at least garbed in protective gear, is setting out on foot from some dry patch of ground to reach, and, I hope, rescue her. Disastrous flooding must bring about numerous episodes like this. The man may have been specially trained in this kind of rescue work. If the car doors are closed, it must be extremely difficult to extract a living fully-grown person from the vehicle. But there must be special tools and techniques which have been developed since the era of automobiles began.

What this all makes me realize, however, is that there must be many other kinds of disasters – not only “natural” like earthquakes, but also, some of them, man-caused, like the bombing of buildings – which cause situations in which people are trapped in ruined structures. We have all seen pictures of whole streets turned into piles of rubble. Sometimes it is known that there are people, possibly still living, trapped inside. This is where specially trained animals, usually dogs with their very powerful sense of smell, can help find such victims. I suppose it helps if they can first be given something to smell associated with the trapped person, like an article of clothing.

This reminds us of the semi-legendary Saint Bernard dogs sent out by a monastery in the Alps to find travelers possibly trapped in the snow by a sudden storm. Part of the legend is that they carry flasks of brandy. There are also real “Lifeboats” on various coasts near rocky shorelines where ships might run aground. The boats can be manned at short notice by people living nearby, who are ready to risk their own lives to go out to rescue people in distress. Dickens’ novel David Copperfield contains an account of one such incident on the East coast of England near Yarmouth.

But, even without such lore, there are enough historically verified accounts of people desperately in need. Unfortunately, all this keeps happening, on a larger scale, right up into our own times. Why was there no one to rescue the Armenians from the Turks, the Muslims from the Hindus, or the Jews from the Nazis?

Traditionally – at least according to the movies – the classic form of rescue was of a group of covered-wagon settlers besieged by Native American Indians. Salvation is signaled by the sound of a bugle – it is the U.S. Cavalry, no doubt starring John Wayne.

Speaking of salvation, a little more than a century ago, a group of earnest and devout Christians in England were the founders of a movement which became known as the Salvation Army, devoted to saving the souls of “lost” people in the slums of London. Their headquarters were actually proclaimed to be “Rescue Missions.” (They made popular songs into prayers, saying “Why should the Devil have all the best tunes.”)

Even more time-hallowed are the stories of shipwreck survivors on a remote island (no doubt in pre-radio days) who, like Robinson Crusoe, may have to wait months or even years before being discovered.

Incidentally, the Crusoe story was inspired by the true account of a man named Alexander Selkirk, a seaman who was marooned on an island off the coast of Chile.

His story was read by Daniel Defoe, who turned it into a bestselling novel.

I have visited another, even more remote, island in that same area. Now called Easter Island, it is best known for the enormous stone heads, carved and set up by earlier inhabitants, which seem to be staring out to sea.

But, while we are on this subject, I cannot resist telling you the alleged account of a young woman who was the only female survivor among a group of shipwrecked crew members who found refuge on a small, otherwise uninhabited, island, before they were eventually rescued. Many people back home were eager to hear her story – and, among these, at one gathering, was a very prim and proper matron, whose reaction was to say to the survivor, “Good Heavens! In such dreadful circumstances, I can only hope you remained chaste.” To which came the reply, “Chased? You bet I was chased – all over the bloody island!”