The episode of 20/20 tonight(1/23/09) has been rather good so far. Show title: "Live to Tell:Who Lives? Who Dies?" is about advice on surviving a life-and-death crisis, such as a plane crash, a fire or a boat sinking.

I know it's short notice, but maybe the west-coasters can catch it - half way through the show central time.

Bottom line seems, to be aware and have an escape plan. Very few people are able to process and act on new information in a short period of time, seconds only. Most people actually freeze during a crisis instead of panicking. One of their experts described it as the brain getting caught in an infinite loop trying to find the correct reaction to an event you have never experienced before.

-Tommy

oh well. next time.

Darn, I missed it!

Hopefully it will be aired again at a later date.

I caught the last part of this, the part dealing with the mtn. lion attack.

I thought it was interesting how much they focused on the intangible things like how having faith saved this woman's life when all seemed lost and gave pretty short shrift to the folks who actually saved her life by scaring off the lion.

Not trying to denigrate anyone's religious beliefs, I simply found it interesting. They talked about her faith and her beliefs for several minutes, then almost as an aside they mentioned the 3 guys who rolled up, one of whom hit the lion with a rock causing it to drop the victim's head. In fairness, they had about a 10 second clip of the rock thrower telling his story.

An interesting take on what must have been a pretty terrifying incident.

Kudos to the woman's friend who stuck around and was apparently playing tug of war with the lion using the victim as the item being tugged.

JohnE

Two of the segments seemed to focus on the faith issues. The other story was about a man that was cut in half by a train car. Not necessary religion only, but faith or not wanting to let their family down is characteristic of people who survive these situations. In the other segments, awareness, knowledge, and planning seemed to be key.

The first story was about "The Station" nightclub fire. This one many people didn't react quickly to the fire and when they did they all tried to get out the exit they had entered from. It was more of the psychology of the survivors. This is were the expert explained that many people get stuck in a loop trying to evaluate a response to a situation they have never experienced before.

The second story was the DC10 crash in Sioux City. The people had about 44 minutes to prepare themselves. One survivor talked about how he located the nearest emergency exits and planned how he would open it. After the crash he ended still strapped in his seat upside down, but still had the presence of mind to get out of the seat, locate an exit (hole in the fuselage), and help others get moving.

The third story was a 10 year old girl in Indonesia that recognized signs of the tsunami and convince her parents and a few others to leave the beach.

I would say go to the abcnews website but that is the most awful design I've seen in long time.

-Tommy

Have to make a correction, I wasn't watching 20/20, I was watching Dateline NBC last night that apparently was also doing a show on surviving various events.

My apologies.

JohnE

The clips are up on the website, if anybody wants to watch it.

http://abcnews.go.com/2020