"Who would you save" comes true

[AstroManLuca]

You'd almost never run into a situation where you had a 100% chance of saving either person but a 0% chance of saving both (not to mention enough time to actually think the decision through). In most cases, you're much more likely to save one than the other, like in this one, and you should always do the more likely one.

 

[octopus41092]

Now she is going to hate him forever for letting their son die. Now he not only lost his son, he will lose half of everything to his wife after a divorce. 🙁

But if he saved the son, the son would blame himself for the death of his mother and eventually kill himself. So, going by this his son is dead either way and should just go for his wife and make more babies

 

[TheVrolok]

That's going to be rough emotional baggage for the rest of this life. Either way.

 

[destrekor]

No you fail at physics. This is a car not the freaking Titanic. Large objects only take things down while they're sinking, not once they've reached the bottom. The article says he reached the the scene of the accident a bit under 2 minutes after it happened and the car was just over 3 feet under the water. His wife escaped, and so she must have opened the door or window which means the car would have been filled with water. There's no way it was sinking when he got there. It was at the bottom.

manual windows, perhaps?

If my truck got submerged in water, I wouldn't have to wait for the whole vehicle to be submerged. I'd just have to crank a window down.

 

[destrekor]

It's ironic that you complain about Christian culture bleeding into everyday life, yet you apparently believe the antiquated notion that male children are more important than female children (at least for the purpose of continuing your family). They may not continue your name, but how important is that really? None of us have unique names.

ay, a little bit at least.

however, that is man's most likely nature as a tribal creature, paternal instincts if you will.
Males are the brutes, the protectors, the physical laborers. Yes females are doing that more and more, but physically and mentally men are far more likely and more of them are capable of those roles. Not to knock hard working women, I'm just stating scientific facts - men are more capable of more strength, and are more likely to have a brain geared around problem solving. Like most animals, those genetic traits can vary, but in terms of pure numbers those are "male traits". Just saying...

No, I don't quite know where that fits into the argument, it popped into my head and I felt like I should type it. 😛
Mostly going along the lines that it's antiquated. Just because it's an older concept that monotheistic religions, doesn't mean it's less viable. 😛 Back in history, carrying on a last name wasn't the important thing, it was everything else about the family. Women taking the man's name in marriage is more of a symbolism related to the more ancient paternal roles, most definitely not the other way around. It was simply a way of taking what already existed and giving it new flair within the religion.
Again, more rambling...

A full on-topic reply I am honestly struggling to think of at this minute, so I'll probably come back to this. You are making me think.

Wait, got it.
It's a personal thing for me. My family name, while relatively common, is actually direct bloodline with the most famous man in U.S. history to bear the name. I am America. 🙂 So, as the only male child in my small family, and from what I can remember am the only male, covering my generation through my grandpa's (not sure if his father had brothers, but I think my grandpa did not, he had 1 son (my dad), and I am the only son)... I feel I have a certain weight to carry this name on, and more importantly, my personal beliefs echo so many of my ancestor's, I feel a need to strive toward making this name historically significant in modern times too. I'll accomplish that somehow, working toward figuring out just how I'll go about doing that. 😛

 

[AreaCode707]

There is no "right" answer to the scenario this poor guy faced. There isn't more virtue to saving one or the other of the lives at stake, regardless of the age and relationship. All there is is a tragedy because someone died and someone lived.

You can't have an academic debate about who he "should" have saved or whether he did the "right" thing because there is no correct answer.

 

[AbsoluteParadigm]

It's ironic that you complain about Christian culture bleeding into everyday life, yet you apparently believe the antiquated notion that male children are more important than female children (at least for the purpose of continuing your family). They may not continue your name, but how important is that really? None of us have unique names.

From a purely dissemination of genes point of view, males are more likely to have more offspring carrying their genes. Males are capable of multiple offspring at a time while females are limited to one offspring at a time. In the wild, males do tend to spread their genes to more offspring than females. Of course when taking human culture and societal values into account, the difference in genetic dissemination potential would be moot.

 

[kalrith]

Should have saved the son. Always save your children. I mean any parent should give their life for their kid if it unfortunately came to that.

I agree with this. The wife probably would've given her life for her son, so it seems almost cold to save her and have her live with the reality that her salvation directly resulted in her son's death.

Edit: And the son has a lot more years ahead of him (most likely anyways), so he'd be saving someone who would get 20 more years of life than his wife. It's a rough situation all around, and he at least tried to save the kid first. No one can really say what he would do in this situation unless he's been in it.