Last night my roommate and I were watching one of those crazy I-should-have-died-but-I-escaped-instead shows which included a story about some guy who barely missed being chomped by a Great White shark. He was a self described adrenaline junkie and decided that being submerged into the ocean 30 miles off the shore of Cape Town, South Africa to observe Great White sharks from a shoddy metal cage would be the ultimate experience. In case you didn’t know, Cape Town has a higher concentration of these prehistoric beasts than any other area on the planet and therefore, is the place with the highest probability to get up close and personal with one (if you’re into that sort of thing). Needless to say, the cage this guy was in had a huge gap in between some of the bars and you can guess what happened next. Within a few minutes, he and the tour guide were pinned to the bottom of the cage as a Great White shark thrashed wildly above them, stuck in the huge bar gap. Horrifying, right?
I am extremely afraid of the deep ocean. More specifically, the creatures that are residents to said environment. Whales, sharks, weird transparent fish that never developed eyes because they live in pitch-black caves at 10, 000 leagues … you name it. Scary! I don’t care that whales are supposedly “nice” - they are huge, make freaky sounds and can totally swallow you. Sharks are not supposedly anything except frightening killing machines that roll their beady eyeballs back into their head, curl their lips behind multiple rows of teeth and jam themselves into metal cages with the sole purpose of eating you. I have no idea what my next move would be if I were to be stuck on the bottom of a cage with that nightmare flailing around, it's razor sharp teeth just a few feet away. I sincerely believe I would crap my pants, but from there it’s a toss up.
Anyway, this adrenaline junkie/ total retard managed to quickly slip past the shark, out of the cage and swim away, hopefully to the boat nearby. I would like to think this is what I would have the courage to do, if I were in this situation (which I will never be, because I am not stupid enough to stick myself in a shark habitat). Sheesh, my heart rate is increasing just thinking about it. I would try to swim to the top of the cage and pull myself up to the boat by the attached rope, especially since I would reek of fear and it would only be a matter of time until that shark’s friends found me. My roommate had a different view on how she would handle this situation. She knew, without a doubt, that she would punch the shark in the nose and grab its gills until it went away. Um … YEAH RIGHT.
Forget that I believe there is no way you can definitively decide how you would react in an encounter like this until you actually experience it. Your body will not and does not work this way. Unless you are unafraid of being torn limb from limb by an enormous sea creature, your physiological make-up will not allow you to react that way to fear (or even severe stress). Your autonomic nervous system kicks into gear during a disaster, pumping adrenaline through your body to prepare it for action while basically shutting down the brain. The part of your brain that is responsible for judgment and reasoning is impaired when your body senses fear because its main objective is survival. Shutting down your brain is not always a good thing, this reaction can be slowed by taking deep breaths and the like, but let's be real – are you going to stop and take a moment to meditate with that Great White bastard practically on top of you? I think not. The ANS reaction in this situation is definitely appropriate and I invite any of you to challenge me on this. Keep in mind, you must have experience in this specific situation, ie. have been pinned to the bottom of a metal cage by an enormous Great White shark off the coast of South Africa and instead of swimming past it to safety, you chose to punch it in the snout and grab its gills, resulting in its retreat and your survival.
Garbage.
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