Unthinkable_ Who Survives When Disaster Strikes - and Why - Amanda Ripley [94]
Rape victims sometimes undergo something similar. About 10 percent of female sexual assault victims later report that they experienced extreme immobility during the attack, according to multiple studies by Gallup and his colleagues. A stunning 40 percent said they remembered having some kind of symptoms of paralysis—feeling “frozen,” or oddly impervious to pain or cold, among other symptoms. That’s actually slightly higher than the percentage of sexual assault victims who report that they tried to fight back or flee their attackers. In other words, paralysis may be a more common response to rape than fight or flight. Unfortunately, rape victims do not usually understand what they did. Many go on to experience extreme remorse because they think they simply surrendered to their attacker, Gallup has found. “They don’t realize that what they did may have been a very adaptive reaction.” Paralysis can also make prosecution of the rapist much more difficult, since the lack of struggle may look a lot like consent.
Strangely, we have tended to dismiss our own paralysis as a kind of embarrassing meltdown, while ascribing all kinds of more interesting motives to birds. But everything we have learned from animal research suggests that it is a hardwired, adaptive response that serves a very specific purpose.
In researching this book, I kept stumbling across anecdotes about human paralysis in unexpected places. Everyone, from firefighters to police officers to driving instructors, seemed to have a story about a frightened person who froze. They didn’t always understand the behavior, but they had all seen it. Even Nassim Taleb, the trader and risk expert, told me he has seen stock traders freeze—while they are losing all of their money. “They just stand there, doing nothing,” he says.
I met “U.,” the commander of an elite Israeli undercover operations unit, at a rest stop outside of Jerusalem. For security reasons, he liked to arrange meetings at anonymous places. He requested that I identify him only by the initial U. because of his undercover status. Like most professional killers, he didn’t look like the part. He was slightly built and wore a black T-shirt and jeans. He had a kind smile and spoke fluent Arabic. It wasn’t hard to imagine him melting into the Palestinian territories. We talked over sodas about the six years he had spent running hundreds of operations under extreme stress. Sure enough, when I asked him if he had ever seen anyone freeze, he had a story too.
In 2002, U.’s unit was following two suspects from Nablus, a city under Palestinian control in the West Bank, to Jerusalem. The men were suicide bombers, and they were believed to be carrying a bomb with them. Along the way, they stopped at a crowded parking lot. From a nearby vehicle, U. watched them through video surveillance from a drone device. Although the area was crowded, he decided that a better opportunity might not present itself. He gave the order to take the men out. The operation lasted just seconds. Four of U.’s men, dressed as Palestinians, descended upon the suspects, wounding one and killing another. A bomb was found in one of their bags, U. says.
Among the innocent bystanders in the parking lot, U. noticed two distinct responses. As the gunfire and shouting broke out, a small number of mostly younger people started to run. But there wasn’t an obvious escape route, since the parking lot was surrounded by large piles of dirt. So what did everyone else do? The rest of the crowd dropped to the ground and froze exactly where they were. They did not move, even after the danger had receded. One hour later, U. remembers, many were still there, uninjured but not moving.
It’s always possible, of course, that these bystanders were suffering from shock or despair. But the lines between these experiences are not distinct. We don’t either go into shock or freeze. These behaviors are most likely connected. Much more research