Testing Human Limits

[GGT]

Survival stories! Currently, those 33 Chilean miners stuck underground, waiting for rescue, is simply amazing. By now I'd have gone bonkers, literally insane from claustrophobia. NASA has been assisting with the mental issues of their trapped confinement, but still....

It's almost surprising one of them hasn't tried to kill themselves, or someone else. I don't know how they're managing to cope so well. Buried in a tiny dark room with all that earth and rock above, for over a month now. Waiting. Stench, heat, spiders, suffocating blackness. Waiting. Measuring waist lines so they can fit through a small rescue tunnel.

Buried Alive.

Same thoughts creep me out after earthquakes or avalanches, people buried alive, trapped, waiting, waiting....*shiver*

What would be the most challenging test of your physical and/or mental limits?



(Hopefully we'll get some posts from military personnel about their training exercises.....)

[earthJoker]

Avalanches are crazy, you can't move at all. Like you are casted into concrete. But you die quite fast.

I don't know if I would want to live on if I lost control over legs AND arms.

[GGT]

Avalanches are crazy, you can't move at all. Like you are casted into concrete. But you die quite fast.

I don't know if I would want to live on if I lost control over legs AND arms.

But dying quite fast would be preferable over lingering and waiting.....?

[GGT]

Maybe what's helping those miners is being in a group, not being alone. Reading about trapped earthquake survivors, they often say that hearing voices around them helped them hang on; they didn't feel so alone. In sci-fi movies, it's always the lone survivor trapped in a pod, floating helplessly into dark space without communication or power, that means certain death. NASA can help the miners with that....but still....as far as I know this kind of survival test has never been done. As an "experiment" it would just be too cruel.

The effects of that sort of entrapment and deprivation just can't be known yet, so it's very creepy but also intriguing. My son mentioned Anne Frank and her situation, or anyone hiding for long periods of time in a tiny space to stay alive, but I really think it's different. Hiding versus being buried, shades of grey, forced choice or no choice. This also makes me think about solitary confinement in prisons, The Hole. And war torture, black suffocating hoods, bound limbs, cramped spaces.

I only hope no scientists will get access to these miners' psychological profiles when they come out, to use their experience as a new and improved way to drive people crazy.....

[Spawnie]

I suspect that they will just man the funk up and wait to be rescued. They work underground for their jobs. If they were going to have the hissy fit you described in the first post, i imagine they wouldnt have last long as miners. Plus there are 30 of them.

[Ominous Gamer]

One of those miners is in no rush to come topside, cause then he'll have to deal with his wife and mistress who are waiting for him.

From what I've heard the wait isn't to terrible. They've got PSPs and food. Send them a good multiplayer dungeon crawler and they won't even notice the time go by.
What sucks is that they aren't getting paid or compensated for being suck where they are.


You want to test your mental limits? Work in phone support.

[earthJoker]

But dying quite fast would be preferable over lingering and waiting.....?

Well if you die anyway for sure. I suspect that you pass out quite fast too, so if you don't die you wont remember the whole period.

[oldmunchkin]

My first reaction to the first post was...OMG I can't imagine anything worse! Then I started thinking. What about knowing the fire is coming, and you can't escape? Or knowing you are sinking in the lake, and can't escape? I suppose it's the knowing you can't get away part that gets me. At least now these miners know they are found and have a chance of rescue!

[Hazir]

Well, I guess it must help that to be a miner in the first place means that you're not claustrofobic. If I only think about being in such a confined space that deep I get queezy. If I ignore that the worst in reality probably are the heat and the humidity. And probably after a while the lack of sunlight. I guess they can solve a lot through that shaft down there. But I really don't think they can cool the place down to a more agreeable temperature.

[xaero1]

Gary Glitter is on his way out to Chile. Apparently the news of 33 trapped and helpless miners was too tempting to ignore...

[Timbuk2]

That's good.

[GGT]

Never heard of Gary Glitter, I had to look him up, what a creep!

But hey, didn't you people catch this part of the OP?

What would be the most challenging test of your physical and/or mental limits?

[termite]

The miners are not actually trapped in a small confined space, they have several km's of tunnel and gallery's available to them to move around. The confined area is the safe room which is about 50 square metres but they are moving in and out of that room quite freely. I suspect the fact that they are alive and likely to be rescued is more than enough to keep suicidal/homicidal thoughts at bay.

As for challenging my physical and mental limits, there would be many answers to that question but I have one very powerful fear that I would prefer not to have tested again.
I like the ocean, I have spent most of my life a short distance from white sandy beaches and white-capped blue waves so I have done a lot of fishing, swimming and boating. I did a bit of scuba diving when I was about 18 and I enjoyed it, although I was always a little concerned about what may lurk beyond the clear water in the murky distance. (watching the Jaws movies as a kid may not have helped this)
That concern became fear when I had a close encounter with reef shark that scared the shit out of me and led me to the decision that I would never scuba dive again - and I haven't. I understand that people have encounters with sharks and get over it but for me it was just a moment of clarity "If I survive this I will never put myself in the situation again."

The threat of being eaten, even partially eaten, while still alive, is the most challenging test to my physical/mental limits.

[Lewkowski]

The threat of being eaten, even partially eaten, while still alive, is the most challenging test to my physical/mental limits.

I bet you hated the last Indiana Jones movie then with those crazy ants... that would be a bad way to go.

[GGT]

....

That concern became fear when I had a close encounter with reef shark that scared the shit out of me and led me to the decision that I would never scuba dive again - and I haven't. I understand that people have encounters with sharks and get over it but for me it was just a moment of clarity "If I survive this I will never put myself in the situation again."

The threat of being eaten, even partially eaten, while still alive, is the most challenging test to my physical/mental limits.

See, even though you were well trained and prepared, one event tested you--and changed your mind. Gotta be at least one miner thinking the same thing, "If I survive this i will never put myself in the situation again".

[termite]

See, even though you were well trained and prepared, one event tested you--and changed your mind. Gotta be at least one miner thinking the same thing, "If I survive this i will never put myself in the situation again".

Yes, this I agree with.

[GGT]

Yeah, it's possible to learn a fear from something we do often and never feared. Can take just one time, or repeated events over time.

No military people posting? Would be interesting to hear how 'ordinary and voluntary events' of a soldier's training-turned-reality, taken to extremes like several deployments in a row, can turn into a phobia or PTSD.....why some minds break and others don't. (Actually, I don't know how any combat soldier wouldn't have some severe mental issues )

[Ominous Gamer]

[Nessus]

Yeah man, what if