Heroic Sacrifice/Real Life: Difference between revisions

* Compared to Chernobyl, the [http://gizmodo.com/#!5782440/50-fukushima-heroes-work-on-as-radiation-levels-soar Fukushima 50] are (hopefully) an [[Averted Trope|aversion]]. They are carefully being rotated to limit their total exposure to within international safety standards for emergency workers (with only a handful of cases where those have been marginally exceeded by accident), and thus far nobody is believed to have received any genuinely dangerous doses. [http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-16212057 The generators have now stablised], though cleanup is still needed.

** In fairness, the Chernobyl disaster was, of course, far worse ('''massively''' higher levels of radiation, inferior or lacking safety equipment and procedures, much less transparency). Certainly a [[Crowning Moment of Awesome]] for the 50, but it likely won't turn out to be a [[Heroic Sacrifice]].

* Following the March 11, 2011 earthquake, [http://mainichi.jp/select/weathernews/news/20110314k0000m040103000c.html Miki Endo], a young Crisis Management worker in Minami Sanriku near Sendai, broadcasted a tsunami warning and was credited with saving the lives of nearly 7,000 people in her town. In recently salvaged recordings from the broadcast, her co-workers can be heard pleading with her to evacuate as the tsunami approached. But she stayed at the mic, warning people to flee until the more-than-ten-meter wave crushed the building she was broadcasting from.

** Fujio Koshita, at 57 the senior Otsuchi firefighter, died standing on top of the firehouse ringing the old warning bell, because the March 11th earthquake killed all electrical power in the town. His bell was heard ringing through the town until the tsunami swept him, and the firehouse, away. According to other firefighters, he violated his own rule about rescue workers; “Don’t die. Rescuers must stay alive” because your job is to help other people.