Posted on 04/20/2007 11:58:21 PM PDT by the scotsman
A survivor of the Virginia Tech massacre has been describing how a colleague died to protect others. Although badly injured, graduate student Waleed Shalaan distracted gunman Cho Seung-Hui to save another person from his bullets.
Waleed saved another student's life.The surviving student, who wishes to remain anonymous, told of Waleed's heroics through an email to his supervisor.
He describes how he was left uninjured after Cho's initial round of shots.
Meanwhile, Waleed had been wounded but was still alive.
However, when Cho later returned to the classroom to inspect for signs of life among his victims, the surviving student struggled to remain calm.
He believes he would have been shot dead were it not for Waleed's "protective movement" that distracted the gunman.
Cho turned and shot Waleed for a second time, killing him, before leaving the classroom.
Randy Dymond, a civil engineering professor, has said the student asked to him to tell the tale "so that the family of Waleed understands the sacrifice."
Shaalan's mother broke down when she heard Mr Dymond's account.
"He was trying to save someone else," she said repeatedly.
Dymond said Shaalan's body was taken to a Blacksburg mosque so classmates, teachers and friends could say goodbye before he was sent to Egypt for burial.'
“Yep, I would feel *awfully guilty* if I was saved by the jerking around of a dying person....”
Curious statement ...
why should you feel guilty ? ... and of what ?
You better do a “save” on the thread if you think it’s going to disappear... LOL
The way you tell it is so possible...
One thing is for sure .... this story has too many holes, too many questions unanswered...
One thing is for sure ... if Mr Dymond wants his moment in the sunshine, he has it.. Without a name, no student can come forward and say “No that never happened” or “It never happened that way”....
Nice to see that there are Freepers who are hell bent to confirm every stereotype about conservatives as knuckle dragging hateful morons. Why don't you just snidely suggest that the only reason he took the bullets was that he was late to his favorite pastime of raping a goat, and thus happened to be close by.
GOD ALMIGHTY, the stupidity and incivility is only matched by the hatred sometimes.
You asked — “why should you feel guilty ? ... and of what ?”
In reading about survivor stories, you hear that theme a lot, “Why did I survive and the guy next to me died?” If there’s one reason why you always hear about the counselors coming out in droves (besides the “overtime pay” but that wouldn’t have anything to do with it...) — is because of these kinds of guilt feelings.
Secondly, if a person “faking” being dead, and someone right next to them was “involuntarily twitching and flopping” and couldn’t do anything about it — that person could very well start to feel ashamed of surviving, while the guy next to him couldn’t “help himself” in that he was so wounded. That person might think, “What if I did this?” or “What if I helped him this way?” or *countless* things start coming up in one’s mind.
That’s how the mind works in “totally senseless things”. One person sitting in a reastaurant, a bomb goes off, the person next to you dies, nothing happens to you. It’s “Why me?”
You’re in an airline crash, you’re sitting in the seat when it crashes and you manage to get by unscathed, but the person right next to you has his head chopped off by a piece of metal which flew by, and you’re just shocked and wondering, “How did I ever survive this?”
So, the student is right there, the shooter is looking for people who are still alive, he stays very still, the person next to him can’t stay still because he’s so injured and the shooter kills him on the spot, just less than a foot from him. He stays safte because he didn’t move. The other guy *couldn’t help himself* and he involuntarily moved and that got him killed. “Why not me?” goes the questions. It develops into guilt and withdrawal.
Again, that’s why they start calling out the counselors in situations like that...
Regards,
Star Traveler
[... the gunman LEFT THE ROOM, then came back...]
1) Why didn’t uninjured anonymous try to escape when CHO LEFT THE ROOM? Is this Katrina syndrome?
2) Why didn’t uninjured anonymous try to help Waleed escape when CHO LEFT THE ROOM?
3) Why would uninjured anonymous want the world to know he didn’t have the sense to try to escape when CHO LEFT THE ROOM?
Post 344 is for you.
Fear paralyzes. I imagine that he is anonymous out of embarrassment.
4) Why don’t people act in predictable, rational ways when confronted by SHOCKING, TRAUMATIC VIOLENCE?
Instead of the term “ethnic” Jew, I like to say
“cultural” Jew. This differentiates the faithful
and the secular.
Your version is much more plausible.
I tend not to believe tales told by anonymous drama queens.
I agree with you Jo...
All these are great questions
They were thrashed out on another thread...
One of the main questions remains...Why did the students not do something during that TEN minutes...
Don’t know who all is on that ping list, so only got the first few...
In regards to what you ask — well, survival is an interesting thing, especially when you’re trapped and you thnk there is no way out. It seems that we are conditioned two ways.
One way, from the aggressors side, is to back off when the person has fallen and/or given up and/or plays dead or dosen’t move. His aggressive instincts seem to lessen at that kind of situation. On the other hand, aggression *ratchets up* when the response from the other side is still viable. So, you have agression either going down or racheting up, according to the response of the other party.
And so, on the other side of the equation, we have the opposite reaction, there is a tendancy to curl up, give up and back off, sort of “instictually knowing” that this is the way to lessen the agressor’s anger. Mind you, this is true when one sees *no way out* — and not necessarily if one thinks there’s still some other option. If they think so, then they will fight to get out. If they don’t, then this is the *last option*.
It seems to me that these two aspects of instinctual human behavior have worked very well in this situation.
Regards,
Star Traveler
I love it when the perfect response is the first one. Saves me from having to scroll through them all, and from having to make up one of my own.
Hey Nana... You’re doing great.
I like your posts. Good thinking.
Maybe because instinct cautions you not to be the first member of a prey group to stick a head up, possibly drawing the lethal attentions of your predator.
Puh - leeze.
What difference does it make what religion he is? When was the last time you read, 'Catholic saves life?'
The Muslim PR team is plugged in.
Thanks Jo, ST
Your posts are great too...
We’re having a great time...
ST, your theories are so intelligent and plausible...
You said — “Here’s an interesting article on survivor’s ‘s guilt.”
Yeah, I read part of it; I’ll go back later for the rest. I can relate to it, because when my dad died, I had some of that residual guilt for it. He was in the hospital for a while, being well-taken care of. But, I still thought, “what if this, and what if that”. I mean, if I said this to the doctor, insisted on that, paid attention to this medicine, or did this one day sooner, or what-have-you.
But, I realize that I’m not in control of these situations, no matter what you can do or decide to do. It’s really only God who makes that final determination. So, I still have some thoughts creeping back in, but I knock them down, because I know that, in my life and in my dad’s life that God, through Jesus Christ, was and is the most important thing. And He has told us, in Romans 8:28 that for a Christian, God makes it so that all things work for the good. That’s what I take to heart and it overcomes all associated (and apparently natural) guilt feelings...
Regards,
Star Traveler
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