Author Finds Rambo Less Likely to Survive Terrible Disaster than the Kid Next Door!

Miraculous survivors: Why they live while others die
CNN - updated 2:20 p.m. EDT, Mon September 8, 2008

What do ... survivors share in common? That's the question that the author Laurence Gonzales has long tried to answer. Whenever a disaster hits -- a cyclone in Myanmar; an earthquake in China; a climbing accident in Alaska -- Gonzales scans the headlines for the stories of those survivors who made it out alive when all others perished.

"I know when something big happens, I know the kind of stories that are playing out and the people who emerge from them with similar stories," he says.

Gonzales looks for people like Ma Yuanjiang, a 31-year-old power plant executive who survived seven days buried under rubble by drinking his urine and eating paper after a massive earthquake struck China in May. He studies survivors like Ari Afrizal, a construction worker who survived the 2005 Tsunami by clinging to a raft for two weeks in the Indian Ocean.

Gonzales explains what makes these survivors special in "Deep Survival," a book that dissects the psychological and spiritual transformation that takes place within people who survive against all odds.

Most of these survivors share the same traits, Gonzales says.

"These are people who tend to have a view of the world that does not paint them as a victim," he says. "They're not whiners who are always complaining about the bad things that are happening to them and expecting to get rescued."

Gonzales says at least 75 percent of people caught in a catastrophe either freeze or simply wander in a daze.

"The first thing people do when something bad happens is to be in denial," Gonzales says. "People who make good survivors tend to get through that phase quickly. They accept the evidence of their senses."

'The Rambo types are the first to go'

Gonzales says many of the disaster survivors he studied weren't the most skilled, the strongest or the most experienced in their group.

Those who seemed best suited for survival -- the strongest or most skilled -- were often the first to die off in life-or-death struggles, he says. Experience and physical strength can lead to carelessness. The Rambo types, a Navy SEAL tells Gonzales, are often the first to go.

Small children and inexperienced climbers, for example, often survive emergencies in the wilderness far better than their stronger or adult counterparts, he says.

They survive because they're humble, Gonzales says. They know when to rest, when they shouldn't try something beyond their capabilities, when it's wise to be afraid.

"Humility can keep you out of trouble," Gonzales says. "If you go busting into the wilderness with the attitude that you know what's going on, you're liable to miss important cues."

Survivors tend to be independent thinkers as well. When hijacked planes hit the World Trade Center during the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, hundreds of workers were trapped in the towers. Gonzales says security told many of them to stay put and wait for rescue.

Most of those who heeded the directions from security died, he says. Most of the survivors decided to ignore security protocol. They headed downstairs through a smoke-filled stairwell and didn't wait to be rescued.

"They were not rule followers, they thought for themselves and had an independent frame of mind," Gonzales says.