Bystanders lift flaming car off trapped man

In this video, witnesses to a car-motorcycle crash quickly self-organize to lift a flaming car off the trapped motorcyclist. In addition to being an inspiring, life-affirming clip, it's also a fascinating study in collective action. Generally, people are less likely to take action in an emergency when others are around (each person assumes someone else is better qualified to help), but you can see this effect being quickly overcome as some people join the effort, luring others, despite the flames and danger.

On a stretch of road by the crest of a hill in Logan, Utah, on Monday, a motorcycle and a BMW collided, throwing the cyclist under the car and causing the bike to burst into flames, which quickly spread to the sedan. Rather than fleeing those two flaming vehicles, a dozen bystanders rushed toward the blaze, lifted the car and pulled the injured man out by his ankle.

Bystanders Lift Flaming Car to Save a Man (Thanks, Laurie!)

I write books. My latest is a YA science fiction novel called Homeland (it's the sequel to Little Brother). More books: Rapture of the Nerds (a novel, with Charlie Stross); With a Little Help (short stories); and The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow (novella and nonfic). I speak all over the place and I tweet and tumble, too.

MORE: accident • automotive • Happy Mutants • utah • video • youtube

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Marco Antonio Morales

YES! :D :D :D
Spring into action, ask/direct for help, and believe that it will work out.
And chances are, it will. Fantastic video – totally sharing it!!
millie fink

Wow, so good to see that.

Btw, to save others the trouble:

“The Logan Police Department identified the motorcyclist as Brandon Wright, 21. He was in critical condition at Intermountain Medical Center Tuesday night.”
http://devojane.blogspot.com devophill

Wow.
monkey_pirate

Go, humanity! Kick ass!

Do this more often!
http://twitter.com/Ayounglad Adam Young

Wow, great start to my morning. Thank you Humanity.
niro5

My Rugby team did this one. But that was because our only jack was broken and we had to change a flat. Not as impressive huh?
http://twitter.com/cbuchner1 Christian Buchner

What about checking if the person is still breathing, has blood circulation? Basic first aid was neglected quite a bit.
- Dom Fletcher
  
  I’m pretty sure one of the first rules of basic first aid is:
  
  Don’t attempt to administer it within 6 feet of a burning vehicle
- corydodt
  
  Right, but if the group that lifted the car was anything like me, they probably felt qualified to lift the car, but not qualified to provide first aid. Still, I’m surprised that out of so many people, none of them knew anything about CPR.
  
  It’s also possible that the police on the scene asked everyone to get back at that point, but where were the cops with CPR training?
milkman

A temporary break from thinking we are all doomed.
Guest

The alternative to lifting the car off the mototcyclist, even at risk of injury or death to themselves, was to watch the man underneath the burning car burn to death, and possibly listen to him scream for help or out of pain, until he died. And then having to replay those images and hear those cries for help for the rest of their lives, knowing they had done nothing, however rationalized. There is altruism and love of one’s fellow man at work there perhaps but also, ironically, self-preservation.
- Snig
  
  But that’s still based on altruism or empathy. With no altuism/empathy, they wouldn’t give a rat’s ass if he died.
  - Guest
    
    Are you saying we as humans only act when we give a rat’s ass? A pregnant woman leading a toddler was going to walk in a store behind me yesterday. I held the door open for her. My motives were neither altruism nor empathy. She didn’t say ‘thank you’ and I wasn’t offended. Par for the course in Sweden, plus she may also have given me a dirty look for being presumptuous that she couldn’t do it herself.
    
    Why did the ratio of people overturning the car lean toward mostly men? My answer to the question above as to whether a dozen women and one man could have overturned the car is yes, by using the muscles where they are strongest – their hips and legs, rather than depending on upper body strength. But men stepped up because they were expected to and they shared and agreed with that expectation. And as is pointed out later in the thread, there was the adrenaline factor to consider.
    
    We may want to applaud the video evidence as altruism, the helping of others for entirely selfless reasons but I don’t believe in altruism (a year long course in college persuaded me of it’s doubtful existence) nor would I assume or depend on empathy as the primary motive.
    - http://celesteagnes.blogspot.com/ Sekino
      
      Why did the ratio of people overturning the car lean toward mostly men?
      
      It could simply be that these were the people who happened to be around. The 3-4 men dressed as construction workers were probably already working nearby. By the time other men/women gather around, the victim has already been moved and the cops have taken over.
    - RyRoBa
      
      “I don’t believe in altruism (a year long course in college persuaded me of it’s doubtful existence”. I can’t think of a better case for actual real world experience over cloistered intellectual debates at university, than that sentence right there….
      - Guest
        
        The title of the course was ‘Evil’.
      - Donald Petersen
        
        Not “Introduction to Evil”? Or possibly “History of Evil, Sec. II — 1066 – 1800 C.E.”?
        
        Not even “Conversational Evil”?
        
        I suspect they may have glossed over some bits if they fit it all into one semester. ;^)
      - Guest
        
        Hah! XD Brat!A year long course, three semesters, more than twenty years ago, but evil hasn’t changed much for a millennia it would seem, so really one can jump in anywhere, evil being ‘banal’ and all.
http://pulse.yahoo.com/_LX75BGGLATZ5VM35SAWHXQ7IWM Norma Darby

let me guess. the guy in the suit and tie that didn’t jump in to help was the driver of the car … yes, they should have checked the young man’s vitals, but lets face it, they were all in shock themselves… from the looks of it, the young brunette woman was the one that kept ‘rallying the troupes’ . .

nevertheless they are all heroes. i hope it all ends well.
- Little John
  
  Norma and Robbie Khan: Yes, that was my guess, too. The one guy who does nothing except lean on the car, get in the way, cross his arms (possibly because of the sheer inconvenience of this delay) and then look at the guy on the ground (but not close enough to actually get involved or, you know, render assistance), is either a real jerk of a driver or a real jerk of a passer-by.
  
  Wait, I think I’ve determined what he is.
  - emarcroft
    
    Eh, I give him a little more credit than that. It is still somewhat selfish, but it might be as simple as the thought of “Holy shit, I just killed someone” rendering him useless to help (everyone else helping didn’t have that baggage to deal with).
    
    Also, at the end he looked like he wanted to check the guy out, but the police seemed to tell people the heroism time was over and they needed to go away from danger, so we don’t know what he might have done if that hadn’t happened.
    - daen
      
      Many, many years ago, back in England, my girlfriend and I went on holiday in her father’s shiny new Ford Granada (yes, it was that long ago). Coming home, it was a beautiful day – bright sunshine, not a cloud in the sky. We were driving north on the A12, and had to turn off at Colchester for the A133 to get home. Now, there’s a part of that exit road that goes under the A12, and around a corner. As I went into the shadow of the overpass, on the apex of the corner, I hit something at about 40 mph. It was a motorcycle, lying in the road. It totaled the front of my girlfriend’s dad’s car, and pushed the bike along the road about 25 yards, under the car. What had happened was that the car *just* before us had cut the motorcyclist up, he’d lost control, and the bike ended up on its side in the road. Fortunately, it turned out that the rider wasn’t with the bike – he’d been thrown clear to the side, but was in a bad shape. I can tell you, I don’t have a clear recollection about the next hour – apparently, I was useless – because all I could think of was that I had just nearly killed someone, horribly. So I have some sympathy for the guy in the suit, if it is his car.
    - http://chawedrosin.wordpress.com/ Lola Rogers
      
      I agree that people should be given some sympathy in such a shocking and frightening situation. I notice a woman who’s helping lift the car in the video quickly moves out of the way when someone else comes to help. Not because she doesn’t feel like lifting a car today, I assume, but because she makes the quick judgement that he will be better at it than she is. A person in shock following the crash might make the same kind of judgement. I’ve been impressed more than once by the quick-thinking pragmatism and lack of grandstanding that happens in emergencies.
  - retepslluerb
    
    If he was the driver, he was almost certainly in a state of shock and is therefore excused.I’ve been in one near accident some twenty years ago, where I thought I might have caused a crash by overtaking another car. It took me nearly five minutes to gather my wits and turn the car around (in a safe manner) and drive back to check. Thankfully nothing had happened, the street was empty. But I’m sure that I would have been quite useless in dragging people from their car.
nanner

that’s amazing! and by the amount of OmyGosh’ing I had to look to see where this happened…Go Utah!
- ferrohorse
  
  There were also several O My Hecks! which is classic Utah phraseology.
  
  Whatever phrase you choose to use, a great, affirming video. As for everyone backing away after pulling the victim from under the car, you can see the police officer directing people to do so.
http://profiles.google.com/stuart.ronkainen Stuart Ronkainen

Maybe Anne Frank was right after all.
jackrabbitslim

Crowd-sourcing rescues! Hooray! Also, the lady in the skirt? Closest to the flames up until the last iteration and in the least protective clothing possible, plus pointing and, seemingly, directing the rescue effort. She has my nomination for real, ultimate badass.
http://www.facebook.com/people/Chris-Hewitt/744800681 Chris Hewitt

“Hey guys! There’s a man trapped under a car! Come help us free him!” “Um, no, we’re gonna stay here and make a video with running commentary.”
- millie fink
  
  Pffft.
grs

Around the 0:26 second mark, you can see the guy in green in the top left talking directions with others. In an emergency, that is what needs to be done. Give direction.

And as far as first aid, no one can tell from viewing the video who is or isn’t trained in first aid. The first rule of first aid is to keep yourself out of harm’s way and then get the hurt out of harm’s way. It appears the police weren’t there yet and/or didn’t have capacity to lift the vehicle. The bystanders could. Once they accomplished that and the victim was safe, the police had to protect the victim and bystanders and protect people from further injury by tending to the threat. There’s quite an edit from 1:20 to 1:21, but I think it was handled pretty darn well.
zebbart

The motorcyclist is apparently conscious and coherent. http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/news/52577065-78/car-wright-riggs-curtis.html.csp
equidae

Okay now that we’ve gotten him out of immediate danger of hot searing death, let’s everybody take 5, stretch out, get a drink of water, and then come back together for the wrap up, kay?, okay.
bkad

Come on people, don’t make this political.

I was taught in social psych class that the way one is supposed to behave in these situations is to single people out when asking for help. (You in the white shirt and blue jeans, get over here and help me move this.) The idea being is it breaks the anonymity of the crowd and some of that ‘diffusion of responsibility’ stuff the poster aluded to. Anyone else have ‘pro tips’ for spontaneous organization?
- corydodt
  
  Speak and act confidently and decisively, even if you aren’t feeling confident. People listen to, trust, and obey a confident person. (This, more than anything else, is why police testimony on the witness stand gets more weight than the testimony of other people: policepeople feel confident.)
  
  Speak confidently, sound assured that you know what you’re doing.
Nadreck

Not surprising that this was a bunch of Mormons. Whatever their other failings, and they have some doozies, they’re good at stuff like this.
mgatch

I used to live in Logan. Nasty hill–the car my sister-in-law was in was hit and demolished.

Most of the folk in Logan are LDS–they are trained from birth in conformity, so it’s not surprising they are more likely to help.
kP

While it was the heroic crowd’s action which merits this discussion, it was police officers, fire fighters and EMTs, all tax payer funded, that actually put out the fire, managed the situation, and attended to the injured. And they do this day in and day out, foregoing profit motivated employment to be civil servants.

BTW, does Utah have a motorcycle helmet law?
- P1rat3
  
  Yes they do have a helmet law in Utah – you have to wear one if you’re under 18. After that, you’re free to suffer all the head trauma or preventable mortal wounds you like since don’t have to wear a helmet in the age of majority.
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=883535187 Robbie Khan

Was the man in the suit the BMW driver? :p
teapot

Can all the people who constantly want to relate everything to political leanings please stand up?

…and then GTFO.

This video is testimony to human kind’s ability to act selflessly for the benefit of complete strangers and suddenly it’s all about mormons, conservatives and men. I mean WTF?

Also, this if you missed it:
http://wins.failblog.org/2011/03/16/epic-win-photos-bravery-win/
Guy gets into a fuel tanker in a raging fire to move it away. That’s balls.
Drue Klinowski

As Penn Jillette says (I’m paraphrasing here) – The vast majority of humans, when given the chance or choice, will do the right thing. It is human nature to do the right thing. This is an excellent example of that.
- zebbart
  
  “The vast majority of humans, when given the chance or choice, will do the right thing.” True for face to face situations, like here. Unfortunately even the slightest bit of removal, like life threatening problems in another neighborhood or some hypothetical guy who need emergency care in the foreseeable future, fail to elicit that universal response.
http://twitter.com/ReallyFineWhine Karl

Bravo on everyone pitching in to make a bad situation better.

I note from various news articles that the rider “laid the bike down to avoid the crash”. Silly. Which gives you better control to avoid an accident: two tires, steering and brakes, or sliding metal and plastic? Maybe if the guy had stayed upright he could have avoided the car, or at least not gone underneath it.
- mypalmike
  
  Indeed. Emergency maneuvers on a motorcycle are all about improving your odds. Laying down a bike is a losing bet. Riding without a helmet isn’t a particularly good bet either.
- Snig
  
  Really? You think there’s a lot of happy endings in head-on collisions, especially when you’re on a bike? There’s not always a clear path to escape it, this may well have been the only thing he could do.
  - grimc
    
    Given his lack of gear, the smart bet is that he had other options but was too unskilled or inexperienced to see them.
    
    Lucky dumbass was lucky.
    - http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=604461989 Mark Drummond
      
      Since we do not have video of the actual incident, the smart bet would be to assume nothing. I know I wasn’t there, so I’m not about to criticise the rider’s reaction. Maybe he had options, maybe he didn’t. Maybe he lacked the skill, or maybe he was unable to call on that skill under duress. Practising emergency procedures on an MSF course and doing it For Real are two very different things.
      
      Lack of protective gear is just plain dumb, but oh so common. Helmets are mandatory where I live, but many people still ride in t-shirts and shorts. ATGATT.
      - grimc
        
        Laying down a bike isn’t an avoidance strategy, unless you’re trying to slide under a tractor trailer. As soon as you decide to drop your bike, you’re surrendering all control. You’re not avoiding a crash–you’re just crashing.
        
        You’re right, there are plenty of reasons to give him the benefit of the doubt, but whenever I see somebody who isn’t wearing gear my sympathy is pretty thin.
      - http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=604461989 Mark Drummond
        
        Agreed. It is not a strategy. But it is often an outcome. The rider panics, maybe locks up the brakes, loses control, lays it down. Or maybe they attempt to swerve but lay on some brake or push too hard into the swerve. According to the news report:
        
        “The crash occurred when a BMW pulled out of a parking lot and in front
        of the motorcyclist. Jeff Curtis, assistant chief of Logan police, said
        the motorcyclist tried to avoid the car, which resulted in him laying
        the motorcycle down.”
        
        Assuming what Mr. Curtis said is accurate, it is entirely possible the rider tried to swerve and lost control in doing so. It is also entirely possible he simply panicked and lost control. And yes, it is possible he intentionally put it down. Maybe he was being an idiot. I too would question the rider’s lack of gear. Maybe speeding? Hard acceleration and not being mindful of his surroundings? These are all possibilities.
  - http://twitter.com/ReallyFineWhine Karl
    
    The only thing he could do? Give up? Purposely crash instead of try to avoid the crash?
- http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=604461989 Mark Drummond
  
  It is hardly that simple. We cannot all be ninjas all the time. “Keeping it together” in an emergency situation is not easy. I really doubt he was being “silly”. Maybe he didn’t have the time and space to swerve? Or maybe he just panicked? But “Silly”?
  - http://twitter.com/ReallyFineWhine Karl
    
    “Silly” is too soft. Try “stupid”: purposely crashing instead of trying
    to avoid the crash. If you have the time and space to “lay it down” you
    have the time and space to redirect the bike. The moment you “lay it
    down” you loose all control. At least while upright you have tires and
    brakes. If you slide you’re going underneath the car. While you’re up
    you have at least some chance of going elsewhere. Ninja has nothing to
    do with it.
zombiebob

SO there is still hope for humanity, or at least for Mormons
kP

“I’m just very thankful for everyone that helped me out,” Brandon Wright told The Associated Press by telephone from his hospital bed. “They saved my life.”
http://www.newsday.com/news/nation/ap-news-in-brief-at-5-58-p-m-edt-1.3168263
emarcroft

According to another article, supposedly this man was the driver of the car:http://huntsman.usu.edu/facult…Obviously hard to tell for sure from the video, but the guy in the suit looks like he could be this guy. I did find it interesting he didn’t really seem to help in the process much, but as a participant in the original incident/owner of burning car he might have still been in OMG mode instead of in any condition to help.And having known Mormons and ex-Mormons, yes, I agree they are probably more trained by their culture to deal with situations like this (when you have a big family you have to be skilled in crowd control/working in a group) but I honestly think people anywhere would have done this. I’ve seen a video from the Los Angeles freeway where a bunch of people pulled a man out of a burning car with even more danger to themselves than this situation (I would say the car was more engulfed and the man was very pinned and it took some work very near a fire to free him). Also, in the last 20 years a quite a lot of non-Mormons have moved to Utah, so I am fairly positive the entire group of people moving the car was not universally Mormon.However, it did amuse me that the audio on the video was TV-ready as is – in most “disaster” videos there is some amount of “holy shit” being said, I suspect even from people who don’t regularly swear. But not here – that was the only thing in the video that made me go “Hee hee, Mormons!”
JayByrd

Great rescue and well-done, considering the circumstances.
On the guy sprawled out on the roadway and people moving back, I was reminded of Groucho Marx administering to Margaret Dumont after a fainting spell, admonishing the surrounding crowd to “Move in closer so she can’t recover.”
Cowicide

The beautiful people.
Guest

Just out of curiousity, since I know very little about cars – wouldn’t a car jack for changing a tire have worked just as well as lifting the entire car? The point seemed to be to create enough space to snag the motorcyclist out from under the car and away from the fire. Don’t most people carry a jack in their cars?
- kP
  
  The adrenalin fueled lift was faster and more effective. Besides, the (apparent) BMW driver appeared to be too spaced out / concerned about keeping his clothes clean to fetch the jack from the non-burning end of the car.
  - retepslluerb
    
    Again, if he was the driver he was almost certainly in shock and it’s common to display strange behaviour.
    
    I once was in an accident where I wrecked my mother’s car by crashing into a tree, totalling the tree (a small one, of course, just 20 cm diameter) and doing a sommersault – with the car, of course – before landing in a water ditch. No humans were harmed, but I was awfully concerned where the window glass of the driver’s side has gone and was intent on searching it along the road for a couple of minures. (And yes, I was driving absolutely sober – I was just too inexperienced for a really nasty road condition. Fresh snow falling on wet tarmac which was below freezing due to a canal right next to it. When I realised that I was going to fast, I actually *braked*. Outch.)
- retepslluerb
  
  I take out the jack twice a year to switch between summer tires and winter tires. Most people do not bother and let their garage take care of that. And flat tires are few and far between these days.
  
  In any case, getting out a jack takes some thinking, time and coordination. Getting lots of people to move the care was probably a lot faster.
- Donald Petersen
  
  Don’t most people carry a jack in their cars?
  
  An executive producer I used to work with on a certain TV show once asked me to give him a hand with a flat tire he’d suffered after driving over a drywall screw (a common movie studio tire hazard). We opened up the trunk of his BMW 535 and started hunting for the jack and the spare. It took us a couple of minutes to find them, because neither had a clearly marked location. I did notice, however, a sizable color sign affixed to the underside of the trunklid, illustrating the best way to fit three golf bags into the trunk.
  
  BMW knows its market demographic, it seems, and trusts them to call for professionally jumpsuited roadside assistance in moments of inconvenience such as these.
  - Guest
    
    My car jack is built into the well in the back of the CR-V. I assumed everyone driving a reasonably modern car had theirs built in too, or at least rattling around in the trunk.
    
    So for want of some simple tools to save a life, we can blame our own laziness and dis-abling services like AAA? That does it! I’m learning to change my own damn tires!
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000938023456 Belinda Contague

Specifically, THE CHICK organizes and starts lifting the car, shaming the big men who were just puttering around, to help.
- http://celesteagnes.blogspot.com/ Sekino
  
  Can’t we celebrate the woman’s bravery and actions without actively insulting and shaming the men?
  
  Most of the men in the video respond to the woman’s orchestrations and they
  achieve something great TOGETHER. There are enough instances of gender-related hatred already, I fail to see the need to turn this wonderful display of solidarity into another vicious tennis match between XX and XY’s.
  
  Brava and bravo all around (to the heroes)!
- Guest
  
  THE WOMAN is amazing!!! 8D
http://www.facebook.com/DamianDayton Damian Dayton

Just spoke to a camera crew that was on-scene shortly after. 1) apparently the victim was breathing and didn’t need CPR 2) The camera filming the whole thing was in a classroom, setting up to film the lecture and turned to capture the action 3) many of the rescuers (up until yesterday afternoon) hadn’t seen the video. 4) You can make this about politics, or religion, but this is a great time to make it about people. GO HUMANS!
tamooj

Helmet Law – I would be much happier with this law if by electing to not wear a helmet (a personal choice) that meant one also opted-out of your medical insurance coverage for having-no-helmet-related injuries. If someone is going to make a ‘personal choice’ that ‘only effects them’ then it’s just fucking selfish to inflict the costs/side-effects of their decision on the rest of us.
Oh, IMHO the same goes for smoking, btw. Everyone should be allowed to inhale combustion products into their tender lung tissues if they so choose – but they should be required to pay cash for all medical procedures, and have no living family to be devastated by their slow lingering death. All freedom comes with commensurate responsibilities, otherwise we’re just free-riders (parasites).
- Navin_Johnson
  
  Civilized people want to help fellow humans (your “parasites”) even if they have made some bad choices.
Mitchell Glaser

Some points for people who didn’t bother to read or listen to the whole story. First, if you look carefully you will see that the man’s foot is actually on fire when they pull him out, no time for a jack. Second, the jack would have had to be set up precisely where the fire was. And third, for the people who snarked on the guy shooting the video, he was nine floors up on a nearby building, way too far to help, but his video captured something truly important.

Instant action was necessary and that’s just what these brave Americans provided. If we could do this on a grand scale we could take this country back from those who are in the process of destroying it for their own benefit.
Scratcheee

The best of humanity, on display. It literally gives me chills, especially the girl who keeps things moving.

Anyone trying to make claims about how a “conservative” would view this event is totally forgetting, or misunderstanding, the effect of scale. There is a huge difference between what is “right” in a small group of people in which one is directly involved, and what is “right” in a group of 300,000,000 people. It turns out that in the larger group, “right” invariably involves forcing people to do things. As one small example, my college room mate was a pretty far-right conservative Christian. Politically, he was all about self sufficiency and very limited welfare in all its forms. Yet he regularly volunteered his time at a city homeless shelter. Why? Because people needed help and he thought helping them was the right thing to do.
alisonmoss

Anyone else notice that the man in the business suit did not help out. He just stood on the side and watched as everyone else pitched in? I’m sure there is a lesson in here somewhere.
http://l33tminion.livejournal.com/ Sam

The speakers in the video ask why no one is giving CPR, but the obvious answer is that the victim was breathing. That explains why the paramedics at the end of the video are trying to stabilize the victim’s back and neck before moving him instead of rushing him to the hospital as fast as humanly possible.
Guest

Thank you, Sekino, probably so. I think my argument that what we’re seeing in the video represents both selfless and selfish motives stands up. We can’t assume that the people that acted cared more or even at all; we can’t assume that those that stood on the sidelines didn’t care at all.

I saw a video reenactment years ago of a man who was trapped in a burning car somewhere out in the countryside, while dozens of people stood helpless to extract him from the car. At first while the fire was small, he was unconscious and the car was locked. He regained consciousness as the fire spread, but the doors were jammed in their frames and his seatbelt wouldn’t release. No one had the tools to crank open the door. He couldn’t cut his way free of the belt and the fire was spreading fast. No one had a fire extinguisher. The people outside the vehicle had to watch and listen to him burn to death. This possibility made quite an impression on me.

To this day, I always have a sharp knife in my car, a crow bar and a jack, and a center punch. On long road trips we also have a large fire extinguisher, a slightly better than basic first aid kit, road flares, extra water, and a blanket. I’ll bear witness to someone’s death rather than letting them die alone if I have to, but I’d rather not and certainly not for want of some simple tools. This is both empathy and self-preservation. There is no one I find harder to live with than the voice inside my head and my own imagination.
Scratcheee

Difficulty, on scale of 1-100, of a dozen people lifting a car to rescue a guy under the car: 78

Difficulty, on scale of 1-100, of a dozen people figuring out how to assemble and use a manufacturer’s car jack before the guy under the car burns to death: 94
http://twitter.com/timthebrown Tim Brown

This is a compelling video not because of religion, politics, psychology or ultimately questions of motivation or self-preservation, it is fascinating because it looks directly into the heart of humanity and finds decency and selflessness. Call me naive, but given the opportunity, I bet that vast majority of people anywhere would have the same instincts and try and take the same action.
Guest

OH MY GOSH! XD

This is fracking good. A good thing. All the people, working together. To help.
http://evilbobdayjob.blogspot.com/ Deidzoeb

Re: people failing to take actions in emergencies — I seem to remember in CPR training class about 25 years ago (omfg), the teacher advised that you don’t say “Someone please call 911,” because the bystanders might all wait for somebody else to do it. You say, “YOU IN THE GREEN SHIRT, go call 911,” and they kind of sheepishly obey, or realize that you’ve asked them to be responsible for it. (Back when you had to *go* make a call, not reach into your pocket to make a call.)
Camp Freddie

Use a jack?

First you need to get it out of the boot, or possibly detatch it from a position under the car.
Then you need to ensure the handbrake (erm, parking brake?) is on, or it’ll roll as it lifts and crush anyone under it.
Then you must find the jack point. The rear jack point in this case, since the front one is right next to the fire. If you miss the jack point, you’ll just put a hole in the bodyshell or worse, the jack will slip and the car will fall.
Then you need to jack up the car, which takes about 2-3 minutes of winding.
Then you need to hope you can lift it high enough. A spare-tyre jack doesn’t extend very far.

Or you can get 4 or more people to lift a car in <30 seconds. Cars aren't as heavy as they look.
I winced watching the video because the opposite door falls open, wedging the car in place at a 45° angle. That's where it's heaviest, and can easily be dropped by a bunch of well-wishing but panicking individuals.

Great to see a good outcome though. And great to see so many people volunteering to help.
I wouldn't be too hard on the driver, he's probably in shock.
Christine Task

I was thinking about the conservative/liberal split on the by-stander effect too…. if you believe the psych studies that conservatives tend to be less compulsively aware of the people around them (they have no trouble ignoring other’s eye movement if they’re told it’s independent of the goal of the study, while liberals are distracted by it regardless)…. then maybe they’d have more resistance to the by-stander effect? It’s awareness of others that causes problems; you hesitate to help because you wonder whether someone else is better qualified or has already solved the problem (ex: called 911).
Navin_Johnson

They want altruism and mutual aid to come from private, voluntary sources, not mandated by the government and paid with taxes.

It’s cognitive dissonance. If the doctor doesn’t like reckless bikers, or blacks, or Mormons, they shouldn’t be coerced into helping them. Like those wonderful antebellum times of old before pesky civil/human rights and societal obligations evolved.

Anyway, bravo for these good citizens, I apologize for soiling this great moment by responding to political bluster.
http://profiles.google.com/mike.grl M D

I think looking into the conservative / liberal bystander effect should also include that this took place in Utah. While people may mock Mormons, originally they organized the church along socialist principles and the ideas of group effort, organization, preparedness and social cohesion are very important to Mormons. So even though they may be politically conservative, they have a group understanding that group effort is vital.

Logan isn’t a super-Mormon area, but I bet 1/3 of the people involved with this rescue were Mormon.

Unfortunately, they sometimes use their organizational powers for less-than-good (Prop 8). But you really can’t out-organize a Mormon.
http://www.facebook.com/russingram Russ Ingram

no, he said the govt shouldn’t hold a gun to peoples heads and force them to be altruistic, but that when left to their own devices, people tend to be charatible on their own (see video above).