Said Benjamín Sánchez, a 5-year-old boy who was lost in the desert (in Argentina) for 24 hours, quoted in BBC.
The decision to start "walking towards a light that was very far away" is interesting. A couple weeks ago, there was a story about 2 little girls who got lost in the forest in California who remembered and followed a survival rule they had been taught: Once you know you are lost, stay put.
1,000 people were looking for Sánchez, and the point at which he became lost was known, yet the searchers never found him. A passing motorcyclist did. That boy must have really been determined to walk. He made the wrong choice, but I'm interested in his determination. I'd like to know the details of what he thought about the light and why it made sense to him to walk toward something very far away.
"I was cold, I slept badly, leaning on a rock."
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14 comments:
Walk toward the light.
It's either the right or wrong decision.
He looks just like Elian Gonzalez. Hard to believe that was 20 years ago.
Walk toward the light.
It's either the right or wrong decision.
In the end, the Light is the way to go, I believe.
Girls stay, boy walks. I wonder if it's a female vs male thing, or simply indicative of that particular child's temperment - or simply whether a parent has ever had that talk with the child.
Did the girls stay because they were told that's what they should do and were obedient to that internal voice or were they at least in part too afraid to move - scared of disobeying the directive - and scared because of the situation?
Did the boy move because boys view inaction as the least palatable of their options? Perhaps he was less afraid of the situation. Peehaps if he had been told to stay, he was less afraid of getting in trouble for disobeying. Perhaps he had more confidence in his ability to save himself.
Growing up in Montana lost boys was a thing. My younger brother was always wandering off, from our front yard when he was three (and I was five), every time we got to a new camping spot on summer vacations. "Where's Jimmy?" is one of those memory memes for me.
Once you know you are lost, stay put.
Shouldn't that depend on where you are? If you're on a mountain, I would think the rule would be to walk down hill. If you're somewhere where there's no water, go someplace else. Nor is it obvious that you're more likely to get found if you stay in one place.
Walk toward the light.
It's either the right or wrong decision.
Bad if you're a turtle hatchling and it's a flood light on a beach house.
He's five. Might have thought the light was somebody's house, too.
Don't go into the light
Occam's razor says light= people.
James K said...
Shouldn't that depend on where you are?
It depends on if someone is going to look for you. If someone is going to look for you, they will start with your last known ( or guessed ) location, and search outward from there. If you keep moving, you are most likely moving away from that location. In particular, children should know to stay put.
On the other hand, if you are an adult, doing a two-week back-country solo hike, you can't expect anyone to go looking for you, so you'd better have a sensible plan for getting yourself out, and surviving while you do.
A few years back I read a story about a midair breakup of a B52 on a training mission during the height of the Cold War. It may have been the Goldsboro crash. Of the crewmen who parachuted safely to the ground, all but one were successfully rescued. It was inferred that the man who died did not follow his training to stay put and started walking towards a farmhouse’s lights. He fell into a creek and drowned.
The Goldsboro crash is mostly famous because two nuclear bombs fell out of the plane when it came apart. As noted later by the officer in charge of retrieving the bombs, a sergeant told him that they had located the arm/safe switch on the “device.” It was in the “armed” position.
"My mum was chasing me and I started running."
Maybe you'll get away next time if you run faster - ¡corre con Dios, Benjamín!
Perhaps this is another child vaccinated against his mother's wishes?
A light may be evidence of civilization or human activity.
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