Return to Transcripts main page

American Morning

Survival Instincts

Aired December 03, 2003 - 09:51   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: If you were lost in a forest or trapped in a bunch building, could you find your way to safety? Our next guest says it's what's in your heart that will help you survive. In his latest book, "Deep Survival: Who Lives, Who Dies and Why," Laurence Gonzales studies why people sometimes react in baffling and illogical ways during dangerous situations. I sat down with Gonzalez recently and asked him to describe the qualities of a true survivor.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

LAURENCE GONZALES, AUTHOR, "DEEP SURVIVOR": I think in a nutshell it's people who take responsibility for themselves. We live in a culture that encourages us to give responsibility to someone else. But those people who say, you know, I'm responsible for my own well-being, and if something bad happens, I'm going to take care of it, those are the people who tend to survive.

O'BRIEN: Your father was the inspiration in a large part for this book. Explain that.

GONZALES: My father was a pilot in World War II. He a bomber pilot in a B-17, and was leading one of the big air raids at the end of the war where he had his left wing shot off by anti-aircraft fire. The plane was torn apart, and he fell within the plane and a piece of the plane which had no aerodynamics at that time except those of a bathtub perhaps, and he fell 27,000 feet without getting out and lived through it, and then was in a Nazi prison camp and lived through that, and then came out and put himself through school and became a college professor and put his life back together and set a great example, I think, for how to survive and how to survive surviving.

O'BRIEN: What was it about him that made him a survivor? What was intrinsic to him?

GONZALES: Oh, I think he just has a tremendous internal solid core and a tremendous energy and drive, and he just never gave up.

O'BRIEN: You divide the book into two parts. The first part is sort of the science of how accidents happen, and the other part is tales of survival, and a lot of those tales are ones we covered in the news. I want to kind of walk through a couple of them -- Aaron Rollston (ph). Remember the guy.

GONZALES: Yes, Aaron Rollston.

O'BRIEN: Gets stuck under a boulder while he's hiking, and has the option of perishing or sawing through his own arm to save his life. There are many people, I think, who saw this on TV and said, you know what, I'd just give up and die.

GONZALES: I think there are many people who would just give up and die. Aaron showed, I think, perhaps some lapses in judgment in getting into trouble, but once it came to being a survivor, once he was in trouble, he was an exemplary survivor. He organized his thoughts, he counted his options, he looked at his equipment, he made a plan, he endured as much as he could endure, and when he saw that his only option was to cut off his arm, he went ahead and did it, and he got out.

O'BRIEN: Where do people make the biggest mistakes?

GONZALES: I think that goes to what you were saying. The book is divided into two halves, and the first half is how to stay out of accidents, which is a key survival strategy.

O'BRIEN: There seems to sometimes be external pressure on not doing something that could be perceived as idiotic later. I was in a high-rise fire one time at a low floor. Same deal, we saw bits of burning paper coming out, and we all said, gosh, I wonder if this building's on fire and went back inside our apartments, and until the fire department forcibly removed us did we really understand the danger we were in.

GONZALES: Exactly. I had a flight instructor when I was learning to fly, who always told me I'd rather be on the ground wishing I were in the air than in the air wishing I were on the ground. I think the same thing applies in all sorts of situations, especially high rise buildings. You'd rather be on the ground on the sidewalk, seeing that it's a false alarm, and go back in and feel a little silly than be on the 53rd floor where the ladders can't reach you and the floor below you is in flames.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com







Aired December 3, 2003 - 09:51   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: If you were lost in a forest or trapped in a bunch building, could you find your way to safety? Our next guest says it's what's in your heart that will help you survive. In his latest book, "Deep Survival: Who Lives, Who Dies and Why," Laurence Gonzales studies why people sometimes react in baffling and illogical ways during dangerous situations. I sat down with Gonzalez recently and asked him to describe the qualities of a true survivor.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

LAURENCE GONZALES, AUTHOR, "DEEP SURVIVOR": I think in a nutshell it's people who take responsibility for themselves. We live in a culture that encourages us to give responsibility to someone else. But those people who say, you know, I'm responsible for my own well-being, and if something bad happens, I'm going to take care of it, those are the people who tend to survive.

O'BRIEN: Your father was the inspiration in a large part for this book. Explain that.

GONZALES: My father was a pilot in World War II. He a bomber pilot in a B-17, and was leading one of the big air raids at the end of the war where he had his left wing shot off by anti-aircraft fire. The plane was torn apart, and he fell within the plane and a piece of the plane which had no aerodynamics at that time except those of a bathtub perhaps, and he fell 27,000 feet without getting out and lived through it, and then was in a Nazi prison camp and lived through that, and then came out and put himself through school and became a college professor and put his life back together and set a great example, I think, for how to survive and how to survive surviving.

O'BRIEN: What was it about him that made him a survivor? What was intrinsic to him?

GONZALES: Oh, I think he just has a tremendous internal solid core and a tremendous energy and drive, and he just never gave up.

O'BRIEN: You divide the book into two parts. The first part is sort of the science of how accidents happen, and the other part is tales of survival, and a lot of those tales are ones we covered in the news. I want to kind of walk through a couple of them -- Aaron Rollston (ph). Remember the guy.

GONZALES: Yes, Aaron Rollston.

O'BRIEN: Gets stuck under a boulder while he's hiking, and has the option of perishing or sawing through his own arm to save his life. There are many people, I think, who saw this on TV and said, you know what, I'd just give up and die.

GONZALES: I think there are many people who would just give up and die. Aaron showed, I think, perhaps some lapses in judgment in getting into trouble, but once it came to being a survivor, once he was in trouble, he was an exemplary survivor. He organized his thoughts, he counted his options, he looked at his equipment, he made a plan, he endured as much as he could endure, and when he saw that his only option was to cut off his arm, he went ahead and did it, and he got out.

O'BRIEN: Where do people make the biggest mistakes?

GONZALES: I think that goes to what you were saying. The book is divided into two halves, and the first half is how to stay out of accidents, which is a key survival strategy.

O'BRIEN: There seems to sometimes be external pressure on not doing something that could be perceived as idiotic later. I was in a high-rise fire one time at a low floor. Same deal, we saw bits of burning paper coming out, and we all said, gosh, I wonder if this building's on fire and went back inside our apartments, and until the fire department forcibly removed us did we really understand the danger we were in.

GONZALES: Exactly. I had a flight instructor when I was learning to fly, who always told me I'd rather be on the ground wishing I were in the air than in the air wishing I were on the ground. I think the same thing applies in all sorts of situations, especially high rise buildings. You'd rather be on the ground on the sidewalk, seeing that it's a false alarm, and go back in and feel a little silly than be on the 53rd floor where the ladders can't reach you and the floor below you is in flames.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com