The Art of Rescuing

Unless we're psychopathic, nobody wants to see another person suffer or die, and in my life I've had some instances of experiencing something of what it means to be involved in the rescuing process, and its consequences; and I'd like to share them here.

A few years back, after the shit had really hit the fan for me and everything was lost, I took a job in Spain working in Seville at Expo. I had so much rage about what had gone down in my life: I felt so cheated that I'd done everything I could for a people, bent over backwards and yet had nothing for myself. It was the start of my feeling bitter about what life had given me. I'd been the "good guy", and yet what I had was shit, the way I saw it, for myself.

So I decided I wouldn't rescue people any more. I would let people do their own thing, and get into whatever messes they got into, and I wouldn't be the one to pull them out of it.

I got sacked from the job in Seville, for reasons I might explain another time, and I went to Granada to stay on a Buddhist retreat for a couple of weeks. It was there that I had some very interesting experiences, one of which was a premonition that I was going to be in a car crash.

But the main thing was that I spent the time I was there meditating, and dwelling on the whole business of not rescuing people. I'd had enough of it. I wasn't going to do it any more, I told myself.

But the premonition about the car crash came up as I was leaving, It was really powerful: quite a visceral feeling of impending doom. It was so strong, the sense that I was going to be in a big car wreck, that I stayed an extra day. Next morning, as I was preparing to leave, I had the same feeling.

This time I ignored it. I looked at the reasonging of it: if I'd stayed the extra day, then how could it happen? But the feeling was still there, although it was slightly less than the day before,

So I drove off, and was heading towards Madrid in my little MG, intending to get to Barcelona to see the Guadi architecture. Then it happened.

I'd only been on the road about 25 minutes, and was passing a car which I noticed had Gibraltar plates. There were an elderly couple in the car, and I waved to them, figuring they were British, too. There seemed no reaction from them, but their car seemed to swerve a little, and waver across the lanes. He struck me as perhaps a bad driver who was a bit dotty, so I passed him and kept going.

Seconds later, I looked to my side and the car was passing on my left, completely on the wrong side of the road. We were on a Spanish freeway, doing about 70mph, and there was no median between the two carriageways, and he was heading straight towards oncoming traffic.

I slowed down myself as I saw the impending crash. At one point, two oncoming cars parted and I thought there'd be a space which he'd pass through. Their tyres poured thick blue smoke as they braked, but the elderly couple's car slammed head on into the two cars at full speed. They seemed to flip up at each other, and both cars rolled over several times, length ways, with the couple's car falling into a ditch beside the road.

I felt sick. I pulled over to the side, and knew I was going to have to face something really awful. I pulled up the handbrake and sat for just a moment, preparing myself for something I really didn't want to see. I imagined decapitations and blood and guts everywhere. But I went across to the elderly couple's car, as I figured I'd be more help speaking to them in Ebglish than to the people in the other car. Besides, some other cars had arrived by now and people were going over to the other wrecks. I heard the most awful scream from one of the cars, and imagined someone dead, and their loved one screaming heside them, It was a sound I never want to hear again.

When I got to the couple's car, it was on its roof, and petrol (gas) was pouring from the tank and engine compartment. The doors were crushed shut, and the windows were too compressed to pull anyone through. On top of that, there was a camping gas cylinder in the back of the car that was leaking. The stench of butane gas was in the air, and a loud hiss was coming from it. I knew the car could blow up if anything caused a spark.

For a moment, I knew I had to make the decision to either protect my own life, or risk it to stay with these people to get them out of the car. I was certainly amazed that either of them had survived.

But the only way was through the tailgate, so I think I broke the rear window, then pulled the tailgate down, pulled out all the luggage, then got the gas cylinder out. That was the main worry. A child had come over and I warned him, as best as I could, how dangerous it was with the gas cylinder, but finally, with the help of some others, we got the couple out of the car and to safety.

The woman was most seriously injured, as something had gone through her eye and into her brain, as far as I could tell. He pupils were dilated with panic, and I looked into her eyes and told her that help was coming. I stayed with her, and tried to keep her as conscious and aware as I could, and reassured her husband, who was lying beside her, with less injuries, that everything was being done that could be done.

Eventually, after what seemed like ages, the ambulances arrived, and the couple were taken away. I don't know what happened to Mr and Mrs Fuller after that day.

But I'd done it again. I'd been a rescuer, and put my own life at risk this time. Why had it happened to me again, I asked? And especially as I'd just moments before decided that I wouldn't play the rescuer again!

When I got back to England, after yet more difficulty, I finally fell apart and had a complete nervous breakdown. The accumulation of all the stresses had been impossible to deal with. The car crash had been the last straw. In fact, just as it happened I remember feeling really tempted to just put my foot on the accelerator and keep on going, and let someone else deal with it.

But subsequently, I got the whole businees of rescuing into perspective.

We rescue people because we can empathise with their situation. When we can see that someone's in distress, unless we're completely cold hearted we want to do something, so we do. But there are ways we can do it, and some are more effective than others.

The analogy of a person drowning is a good one. We may see someone in the ocean, bobbing up and down, and we can look at the options open to us. We can jump in and save that person, risking our own life, and possibly drown as well, or we can throw a lifeline, if there is one, or we can stand on the shore, wishing so much to help, but be completely powerless to do anything.

Nobody wants the last option, nor the first. What we really want is the middle one. We want to be able to rescue someone, but from a place of safety ourselves. If we spend our life risking that very life for others, it's really only a matter of time before we get sucked in and drown as well.

But many people do that all the time, in the ways they rescue people. Either that, or they feel consumed with guilt because they'd wished as much as they could that the person may not have drowned/died, but were powerless to do anything about it.

So it got me thinking about why it is that people rescue others at the cost of their own wellbeing, or even life. And I realise that it's because they become too attached to the personal relationship, rather than the principle behind effective rescuing.

What it means, at the end of the day, is to be able to give someone something that's more effective than jumping in to save them. What it means it to give them a lifeline, and to be able to help them to shore without getting drowned yourself.

After all, what's the point in getting drowned as well? It may be noble, but where's the sense in there being two people drowned, let alone one?

And this is why I see principles as being far more effective rescuing tools than personal involvement. To offer someone the means to resuce themselves is like the parable of teaching someone to fish being actually far more valuable than feeding someone a fish. If you find yourself feeding a person, day in, day out, all you ever do is drain yourself and make the person dependent on you. If you teach them to be self sufficient, and learn the principles of self sufficiency, the whole codependent thing disappears entirely.

The beauty of principles is that they exist, independent of us as individuals.

Most of all from my experiences, I've learned the most important thing. That we should rescue someone at the risk of our own lives only when it's a matter of life and death, and only if there's no other option. When a lifeline is thrown, and the person refuses to take it, there's nothing you can do about it. That person's life is, ultimately, their own responsibility.

That, I've found, is the most difficult thing to accept.