A hero?!

A couple of weeks ago we were reading and discussing in class whether or not it was morally wrong not to intervene when we can.  We discussed someone walking by a small child drowning in a shallow pool of water.  That shallow pool of water did not necessarily pose a health risk or immediate danger to the adult but if the adult chose not to intervene the child would die.

There was recently a tragic school shooting in Ohio where a coach is insisting he is not a hero and is just a football coach and study hall teacher after he intervened in the shooting.  In the time of the events the coach ran after the teenage gunman, putting his life on the line in an attempt to stop the gunman from injuring any more people or even himself (the gunman).  After that he comforted the teens as they were laying there dying.  “I prayed with them.” “I wiped their tears and I know that God was with them.”

In this instance this man’s life was in immediate danger but he chose to intervene.  I do not think that it would have been morally wrong for him to have been naturally scared for his life and ran in the other direction.  Instead he felt that it was his duty not as a professional but as a person to intervene and do what he could to protect the students around him.  “One should always do what you think is the right thing to do.”

In this event the coach intervening quite possibly helped save lives and prevented more deaths from happening.  Whether or not he is a “hero” is debatable I suppose.  The coach himself even argues that or perhaps is a humble man just doing what he thought was the right thing to do.  But in any case the coach, other teachers, staff members and health care professionals all went to great lengths to protect their students and to me that’s very courageous and commendable.