麻豆传媒

EVERY journalist in Gaza knew the rule: one strike usually means two, so stay well away until you hear the next hit. But the cameraman staying in my hotel forgot, and that night he didn鈥檛 return. It was 2002, the second intifada had been raging for 18 months, and hundreds had died on both sides. Intent on capturing the story, he rushed to the scene of an Israeli attack without waiting for the second missile. 鈥淗e made a big mistake,鈥� said his colleague.

It was an epic misjudgement 鈥� fortunately, not a fatal one. But you couldn鈥檛 put it down to stupidity. Many psychological studies have shown that under high stress, when your life is threatened or you have witnessed something terrible, it can be difficult to remember what to do. Or, if you do remember, to actually do it.

This helps explain why so many people caught in building fires and ferry disasters do nothing to save themselves; why people struggle to dial the emergency services in their moment of need; why 11 per cent of sky-diving deaths are due to .

鈥淣o one becomes smarter under stress,鈥� says , a forensic psychiatrist at the University of New Haven, Connecticut. 鈥淭he question really is who gets dumb faster.鈥�

So what befuddles our brains when the unthinkable happens, and can we do anything about it? That question has long obsessed the emergency services, military and others who regularly put themselves in danger. But we can all benefit from understanding what happens in our heads during a fire, mugging or terrorist attack 鈥� and we can use that knowledge to give ourselves the best shot at surviving.

It has become standard procedure for companies and governments to put employees through hostile environment awareness training (HEAT) before sending them to high-risk areas. But is it really possible to prepare for something so unpredictable? 鈥淭raining for emergencies certainly works, there鈥檚 no doubt about that,鈥� says , a former military survival instructor who studies survival psychology at the University of Portsmouth, UK. 鈥淗ow people respond depends very much on what they know.鈥�

鈥淣o one gets smarter under stress. The question really is who gets dumb faster鈥�

Prior knowledge is crucial, because when disaster strikes, your brain is in no state for rational deliberation. It takes just seconds for adrenaline to flood into your bloodstream, pushing your heart rate up from about 70 beats per minute to over 200. Then the body鈥檚 central stress system releases the hormone cortisol, boosting blood sugar levels and suppressing non-essential functions such as digestion.

This evolved fight or flight mechanism prepares us for physical action, but inhibits areas of the brain that govern working memory and process new information. In other words, it primes us to act but not to think. With our cognitive faculties hobbled, if the threatening situation is one we have never been in before, there鈥檚 little chance of figuring out a solution.

One consequence is that most people neither fight nor flee: . Leach estimates that in mass disasters such as ferry sinkings and aircraft fires, about 75 per cent of people suffer cognitive paralysis, resulting in complete inaction. 鈥淥ur brains build up a model of the world, and for the most part that model is accurate,鈥� he says. 鈥淏ut in a threat situation, the model in our head no longer represents the truth on the ground.鈥�

Because it would be unethical to conduct experiments that risk traumatising the participants, most studies of survival behaviour involve elite military recruits who opt in to extreme scenarios as part of their training. Even in this self-selecting group, highly stressful situations can have a big effect on performance.

In 2006, Morgan looked at how an intense mock capture and interrogation affected the cognition of pilots and aircrew at a US military survival school. He used a test of visuo-spatial processing and working memory that involves copying out a complex line figure, and then reproducing it from memory. Compared with controls, the recruits who attempted this in captivity not only had from memory, they also copied it with a piecemeal approach generally used only by children under 10. It was akin to 鈥渟eeing the trees rather than the forest鈥�, says Morgan, and is likely to result in impaired decision-making, particularly if time is short. 鈥淚t approximates what most of us would do under really high stress.鈥� The only way to guard against such decision-making errors, he says, is to have a checklist of actions that you have practised and can follow when you can鈥檛 think straight.

To get an idea of how preparing for unexpected threats might increase our survival chances, I enrolled on a three-day HEAT course with in Andover, UK. On the course with me are representatives of two UK government agencies and an international aid charity. Most of our instructors are former special forces soldiers, although they seem to have their fingers in a lot of hot pies: Andy, our lead instructor, is also a hostage negotiator. His aim this week, he says, is to make us absorb his lessons so that we don鈥檛 have to think about them, because 鈥渢he thinking part of your brain is the part that is likely to get you killed鈥�.

Given our instructors鈥� badass backgrounds, I half expect to spend the first day learning how to dodge a bullet or take cover from an exploding grenade 鈥� that comes later. But they are primarily concerned with reducing the risk of us ever having to face that kind of situation. We learn things like the safest seat on an aircraft and the importance of learning a fire escape route and rehearsing it in your head, so you won鈥檛 have to do that under stress (see 鈥�Tips to keep your wits鈥�).

Day two is kidnap day. We know it鈥檚 coming but it鈥檚 still a shock. We鈥檙e in an abandoned farmyard learning how to crawl through a minefield when we hear gunshots and shouting. Six men in balaclavas come running at us from the bushes. One of them 鈥渟hoots鈥� Andy in the face (with blanks, but even so), meaning he鈥檚 out. Then they turn on the rest of us. They bind our wrists, blindfold us, make us lie in the mud, kneel, stand and lie again. We鈥檙e marched around in a pitiful column then forced onto the floor of a revving van. Instructions are shouted at me a few centimetres in front of my face. Eventually they hustle us into a barn, pull hoods over our heads and subject us to a surprisingly abusive interrogation. They make it personal: one of our group sounds upset and they abuse her for that; another they perceive to be overweight and abuse him for that; I鈥檓 abused for being a journalist, given a new name 鈥� something unprintable.

Somewhere in our rational minds we know that these men aren鈥檛 going to shoot us or beat us, but when the hoods are removed and we are finally released we all feel pretty shaken. Later, during the debriefing, it鈥檚 clear the stress has affected our memories. We disagree on just about everything: the sequence of events, what was said, how long it lasted. To me it felt like 15 minutes, someone else says an hour 鈥� Andy says 45 minutes. None of us can recall what our kidnappers were wearing even though we saw them clearly enough. Apparently this is normal. The crucial thing, says Andy, is that we have learned what it feels like to be a hostage, which makes it more likely that some of the advice he has given us 鈥� don鈥檛 stand out, drink and eat anything they offer 鈥� will stick in mind should it happen for real.

Later, I ask the director of Hostile Environment Training if he has any evidence that the training works. He shows me a letter from a former client who endured a violent kidnapping and robbery at his home in Kenya during which one of his friends was killed. He wrote: 鈥淚mmediately, I saw the situation for what it was and remembering the training I had received, I dropped my gaze, put my hands up, and felt an inexplicable sense of calm 鈥� there was no way I could fight, so what was the point in resisting?鈥� He describes being forced to beg for his life with a gun to his head and a machete to his neck. Clearly not everything can be replicated in training.

鈥淭he thinking part of your brain is the part that is likely to get you killed鈥�

The main purpose of such training, apart from increasing confidence, is to create a 鈥減rocedural memory鈥� to guide your actions when your thinking powers are crippled. It doesn鈥檛 happen quickly, says at the University of Central Lancashire, UK. She has been studying people , which is mandatory for oil rig workers, search and rescue pilots and others who regularly fly over the sea. It involves being strapped into a mock-up of a helicopter that is then plunged at speed into a pool.

On their first trial, says Robinson, most people behave in one of three ways. Either they freeze and don鈥檛 attempt to escape; or they make a sequential error, like trying to get out of a window before undoing their harness; or, most commonly, they revert to a familiar yet inappropriate action, such as trying to release their four-point harness as if it鈥檚 a car seatbelt. 鈥淚n that very high pressure environment, they can鈥檛 inhibit that behaviour or they can鈥檛 think about a new one.鈥� But by the time they鈥� have been dropped into the pool five or six times, the behaviours they have been taught kick in automatically. 鈥淭hey just activate the script and do the action. No need for working memory.鈥�

Robinson, Leach and others are convinced that training increases your chance of surviving an emergency, and that if you have coped well once you are likely to do so the next time. However, because procedural memories are chains of context-specific actions, memorising your office fire drill won鈥檛 help you escape a burning cinema. And a helicopter ditching course won鈥檛 keep you calm during a kidnapping.

This applies as much to trained professionals as the rest of us. On the final day of my HEAT course, Andy puts on a video from the headcam of a US soldier in Afghanistan. It shows two soldiers just after a mine has exploded. One is lying on the ground, the lower part of his left leg blown off. The other is struggling to fix a tourniquet. Usually this is one simple movement, but this time he first has to thread the end of the strap through the tourniquet鈥檚 buckle 鈥� something he has never practised under pressure because tourniquets are usually threaded before they go out. Stressed, his fine motor skills shot, it takes him 2 minutes and several attempts to do it.

People without training differ in how they respond to disasters. This is partly due to and how well we can direct our attention. Anxious people do worse, says Robinson, because 鈥渢heir working memory is basically being eaten up with the thought, 鈥業鈥檓 going to die, I鈥檓 going to die.'鈥� Although as at Birkbeck, University of London, points out, anxious people do have one advantage: 鈥淭hey are more vigilant towards threats, so they鈥檒l be faster to notice danger and faster to want to act on it.鈥�

Running into danger

Even highly trained soldiers differ considerably in their response to threats, and Morgan has found a strong biological component to this. Soldiers who perform best in military survival school, and suffer fewer working-memory deficits, express higher levels of certain stress-regulating chemicals in their central nervous system. For example, compared with regular recruits, special forces soldiers 鈥� selected for their 鈥渟tress hardiness鈥� 鈥� were found to have significantly higher levels of the neurotransmitter neuropeptide Y during a stressful . 鈥淭hey can tolerate more stress without becoming impaired,鈥� Morgan says.

There are efforts to develop drugs that mimic these effects 鈥� and some researchers have even 鈥� but for the rest of us, nothing beats learning from those who know the drill. Anthropologist , whose research into terrorists and religious fundamentalists has landed him 鈥渋n a few very bad situations鈥�, recalls occasions when 鈥渢he ordered reactions of trained people around me clearly helped me pretty calmly control my own reactions鈥�.

The value of training for the unexpected became clear in the aftermath of the terrorist attack in London on 22 March. Five people were killed, and more than 50 were injured, when a man drove a car at high speed onto the pavement of Westminster Bridge and then fatally stabbed a policeman. Most of us would have found such carnage overwhelming, but the medics and other emergency responders have won praise for the calm and efficient way they assessed the scene and treated the injured, despite having little idea what they were heading into. London鈥檚 Air Ambulance crew thought they had been called to a road traffic collision. Paramedics from St Thomas鈥� Hospital didn鈥檛 know if the attack was still in progress when they ran towards the bridge to help. Yet when they got there, they knew exactly what to do: they had done it hundreds of times before.

This article appeared in print under the headline 鈥淚n the face of danger鈥�