The Man in the Water原文
1.As disasters go, this one was terrible, but not unique, certainly not among the worst of the roster of U.S. air crashes. There was the unusual element of the bridge, of cour, and the fact that the plane hit itat a moment of high traffic. Then, too, there was the location of the event. Washington, the city of form and rules, turned chaotic by a blast of real winter and a single slap of metal on metal. The jets from Washington National Airport that normally fly around the presidential monuments like hungry gulls are, for the momen t, reprented by the one that fell. And there was the aesthetic clash as well-blue-and-green Air Florida,t he name a flying garden, sunk down among gray chunks of ice in a black river. All that was worth noticing, to be sure. Still, there was nothing very special in any of it, except death, which, while always special, doe s not necessarily bring millions to tears or to attention. Why, then, the shock here?
2.Perhaps becau the nation saw in this disaster something more than a mechanical failure. Perhaps becau people saw in it no failure at all, but rather something successful a
bout themlves. Here, after al I, were two forms of nature in collision: the elements and human character. Last Wednesday. the elements, indiferent as ever, brought down Flight 90. And on that same afternoon, human nature-groping and strug gling -ro to the occasion.
3.Of the four acknowledged heroes of the event, three are able to account for their behavior. Donald Us her and Eugene Windsor,a park police helicopter team, risked their lives every time they dipped the skids i nto the water to pick up survivors. On television, side by side, they described their courage as all in the lin e of duty. Lenny Skutnik,a 28-year-old employee of the Congressional Budget Ofice, said:"It's something Inever thought I would do"-referring to his jumping into the water to drag an injured woman to shore. Sku tnik added that"somebody had to go in the water,"delivering every hero's line that is no less admirable for being repeated. In fact, nobody had to go into the water. That somebody actually did so is part of the reaso n this particular tragedy sticks in the mind.
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4.But the person most responsible for the emotional impact of the disaster is the one kno
wn at first si mply as"the man in the water."Balding, probably in his 50s,a huge mustache. He was en clinging with fi ve other survivors to the tail ction of the airplane. This man was described by Usher and Windsor as ap pearing alert and in control. Every time they lowered a lifeline and flotation ring to him, he pasd it on to a nother of the pasngers."In a mass casualty, you' ll find people like him."said Windsor."But I' ve never e n one with that commitment."When the helicopter came back for him, the man had gone under. His lfless ness was one reason the story held national attention; his anonymity another. The fact that he went unide ntified gave him with a universal character. For a while he was Everyman, and thus proof(as if one neede d it) that no man is ordinary.
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动漫图片背景5.Stil, he could never have imagined such a capacity in himlf. Only minutes before his character wa s tested, he was siting in the ordinary plane among the ordinary pasngers, dutifully listening to the stewardess telling him to fasten his at belt and saying something about the "no smoking sign."So our man rel axed with the others, some of whom would owe their lives to him. Perhaps he started to read, or to doze,o r to regret
奖励机制老年照护some harsh remark made in the office that morning. Then suddenly he knew that the trip would not be ordinary. Like every other person on that flight, he was desperate to live, which makes his final acts o stunning.
6.For at some moment in the water he must have realized that he would not live if he continued to hand over the rope and ring to others. He had to know it, no matter how gradual the effec t of the cold. He felt he had no choice. When the helicopter took off with what was to be the last survivor,h e watched everything in the world move away from him, and he let it happen.
7.Yet there was something el about our man that kept our thoughts on him, and which keeps our th oughts on him still. He was there, in the esntial, classic circumstance. Man in nature. The man in the water. For its part, nature cared nothing about the five pasngers. Our man, on the other hand, cared totally.翁建
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So age-old battle began again in the Potomac. For as long as that man could last, they went at each other, nature and man; the one making no distinctions of good and evil, acti
ng on no principles, offering no lifelin es; the other acting wholly on distinctions, principles and, perhaps, on faith.
8.Since it was he who lost the fight, we ought to come again to the conclusion that people are powerle ss in the world. In reality, we believe the opposite, and it takes the act of the man in the water to remind usof our true feelings in this matter. It is not to say that everyone would have acted as he did, or as Usher, Wi ndsor and Skutnik. Yet whatever moved the men to challenge death on behalf of their fellows is not pec uliar to them. Everyone feels the possibility in himlf. That is the enduring wonder of the story. That is wh y we would not let go of it. If the man in the water gave a lifeline to the people gasping for survival, he was likewi giving a lifeline to tho who watched him.
