Surviving the Extremes: A Doctor's Journey to the Limits of Human Endurance (19 page)

Surviving sailors, regardless of rank, could also be sacrificed provided the selection was done fairly, such as by drawing straws or some similar method. The first round would decide who the meal would be, the second who the butcher would be. Sailors would be expected to accept their fate as their duty. The specter that one day they would have to play out that drama must have haunted many a ship. To defend against a fear they are powerless to control, humans often invoke gallows humor. Something cannot be as horrible as imagined if it can be trivialized. Thus “The Yarn of the Nancy Bell” about a ship’s crew with no food or water: “For a month we’d neither wittles nor drink, / Till a-hungry we did feel, / So we drawed a lot, and accordin’ shot / The captain for our meal.”

Humor can play a part in trivializing the deed as well as the fear.
In 1884 four crewmen were adrift in a dinghy for three weeks after their 50-foot yacht
Mignonette,
sailing from England, sank in a South Atlantic storm. One of the crew drank seawater and became delirious. The others decided he couldn’t survive, made a sham of drawing straws, then killed and ate him. Three days later they were picked up off the coast of Brazil. The sailor who had been the butcher related later that they were rescued “as they were having breakfast, with their hearts in their mouths.”

The other extreme is to revert to a feral state, the way pets are forced to do when turned loose to survive on their own in the wild. In 1821 a vengeful whale rammed and sank the whaling ship
Essex
in the Pacific. The nearest land, the Marquesas, was 1,200 miles away, but the crew, twenty souls in all, were afraid to sail their lifeboats there because they feared that cannibals inhabited the islands. Instead they attempted a 3,000-mile journey to South America. Three months later, eight wild-eyed survivors were found in boats with human remains scattered about. They were jealously clutching human bones and recoiled from their rescuers, afraid that their food was being taken away. They had become exactly the cannibals they had feared.

Not all castaways become cannibals, but none can be fussy eaters. Staying alive means adapting to the realities of their new environment. And these govern more than just food. Sailing ships are mobile outposts of civilization, and when they sink, they strand their inhabitants in an elemental world of sea and sky. Suddenly bereft of the support structures on which they have leaned, their fate depends on whatever knowledge and experience they can draw on and what resolve they can generate. The animals now surrounding them have had millions of years to perfect their means of survival. They have stronger muscles and faster reflexes, but humans have bigger brains—they can outsmart them. To do that, these people have to become inhabitants of the sea, focusing all their abilities on simple goals: satisfying thirst and hunger, avoiding pain, overcoming fear. There is no recognition of their achievements beyond survival. Fate depends on will. The initial impulse to wait passively for rescue, or even death, must be conquered. Strength can coalesce around defiance, as it did for Dougal Robertson when the freighter passed him by, or it can emerge, steady and steadfast,
from deeply held religious beliefs, as it did for his wife, Lynn.

Marilyn Bailey didn’t consider herself a religious person, but she believed that a supernatural power was governing her affairs. When two ships passed the Baileys by in two days, Maurice began to lose hope, but Marilyn understood why they had made it so far. Their time together in solitude had given them a chance to begin again. She had planned out a new life for them, and firmly believed she would live to carry it out.

Steve Callahan drifted alone in a rubber raft for seventy-six days—two days longer than the
Mary-Jeanne
had been adrift—yet he survived, while eight of the ten passengers on that ferryboat did not. Callahan had the one thing they lacked: the determination not to let fate overcome him. He divided his “self” into three parts: the physical self that feels pain, the emotional self that feels fear, and the rational self that takes control over them both. At first his responses to pain and fear were instinctive reactions that protected his higher functions. As his ordeal wore on, though, more and more he needed those higher functions—of reasoning and will—to maintain control over his once automatic responses. It became harder and harder for him to “coerce”—his word—his body and his emotions. He was gradually losing his “ability to command.” He knew that if that was lost, he was lost.

What all survivors have in common is an energy flow from the top down. Whether the source is defiance, religion, positive thinking, or willpower, it generates a spark in the cerebral cortex felt as motivation. A cascade of electrical and chemical brain circuits is activated to coordinate the thinking and behavior that converts a passive human into a streamlined survival machine.

The sailors on the
Mignonette
and the
Essex
who killed and ate their shipmates were also survivors, but their energy was feral, primitive. Hunger and fear are powerful motivators, exciting the amygdala and the hippocampus. These “lower” brain centers generate compulsive activity, which in a human can be dampened by cortical control. Within the cerebral cortex are standing circuits, developed in individuals to varying degrees, which, in a very simplified sense, are the physical manifestations of morality and reason. These electrochemical circuits form counteracting signals—experienced as inhibition—that
impede or neutralize upwelling electrical and chemical power generated by primitive drives and emotions. This is why someone with cortical brain damage, such as after a fractured skull, might undergo a personality change, becoming more belligerent, for example. Pushed to the extreme, a castaway might also have his cortical inhibitors overpowered by stress, or uncoupled by rationalization. Either way, unleashing of primitive responses promotes his own survival but sacrifices the essential quality that makes him a human.

Rafts that stay afloat eventually reach the shore or another boat. Steve Callahan crossed the entirety of the Atlantic, floating from offshore Africa to the Caribbean island of Guadeloupe, where he was picked up by a small fishing boat. After 117 days, Marilyn and Maurice Bailey were brought aboard a merchant ship bound for Korea. The Robertsons, with the four boys, were spotted by a Japanese freighter off the coast of South America after thirty-eight days adrift. Dougal said, with typical British understatement, that the “rescue came as a welcome interruption of the survival voyage.”

With the advent of global positioning satellite receivers, satellite phones, and water-activated emergency signaling beacons, one might think that shipwreck odysseys would be a thing of the past. One would be wrong. Ask Richard Van Pham or Terry Watson. Van Pham was rescued by a U.S. warship off the coast of Costa Rica after drifting 2,500 miles in the Pacific for nearly four months. He survived by collecting rainwater in his sail, catching fish, and bashing turtles and seabirds with a bat. Van Pham’s 26-foot sailboat,
SeaBreeze,
had become disabled when a sudden storm broke its mast, outboard motor, and radio after he set out on what he thought would be a 30-mile trip from Long Beach, California, to Catalina Island in the summer of 2002. Less than three weeks after Van Pham’s rescue, a fishing boat off the coast of South Carolina spotted Terry Watson adrift on his broken-masted 23-foot sailboat,
Psedorca.
He had been reported missing nearly three months earlier, shortly after he left Miami for a trip to Bermuda. Despite a massive search, covering more than 8,000 square miles (an area larger than Massachusetts) the Coast Guard had
been unable to detect any trace of him. When finally found, Watson was unable to explain what had happened to him. He was emaciated, delusional, and, at first, unwilling to leave his boat.

To a castaway abruptly plucked from his adopted environment, civilization can initially be more frightening and hazardous than the sea. Along with a dizzying barrage of people, noises, smells, and images, abundant food and drink suddenly become available. Having lived on too little fresh water and too much salt air, a shipwrecked survivor will most likely have blood that is reduced in volume and very salty. Then, when large quantities of fluid enter the body rapidly, the blood will draw water in to dilute itself back to a normal concentration and volume. The rapid rise in fluid load may prove too much to pump for a heart unused to exercise and perhaps even structurally weakened by having lost some of its protein to the metabolic fire. Kidneys ordinarily filter out excess water, but they have probably not yet unclogged from all the salt they endured during the voyage. Fluid will back up and collect under the skin, causing a condition called edema, bloating the face and body—and especially the legs, since water tends to sink.

Food intake must be gradual. Digestive muscles will be too weak to move large quantities of food if they need that food to rebuild themselves and the other organs. The first meals must be small, frequent, and easy to digest, balancing carbohydrates and fats for energy with proteins for structural repair. Like water, too much too soon can be fatal, but usually it is just uncomfortable. Indigestion and diarrhea are signs that the body has not yet switched out of survival mode.

Being shipwrecked is a very effective method of dieting. Steve Callahan, Marilyn and Maurice Bailey, and Lynn and Dougal Robertson, none of whom were fat to begin with, lost a total of almost 200 pounds, reducing their weight by nearly one-third. Since death ensues (in nonobese individuals) when body weight drops by about one-half, they were riding the seas with a very thin safety margin.

When setting out on any long ocean voyage—particularly a hazardous one—it is advantageous both to be overweight and to have an efficient metabolism that produces fat easily. Individuals with a large internal energy supply have a better chance of survival. Besides being
better suited to open boat travel, they are better able to colonize a new land since it might take several months after arrival to grow and harvest an adequate food supply. In an environment consisting of many small islands separated by large expanses of ocean, natural selection favors people who put on weight easily and lose fat slowly. The part of the world with that environment is the South Pacific, and the branch of humanity that successfully expanded into it is the Polynesians. They are the closest humans have come to being inhabitants of the sea.

Not having the navigational capabilities of migratory birds or oceangoing fish, the Polynesians were nevertheless able to create an ecological niche for themselves by making astute use of the senses they did have. Crossing empty horizons, they learned to locate land by indirect clues. A greenish tint on the undersurface of a cloud was light reflecting island vegetation. Birds that roost on land could be followed home in the evening. Islands generate sounds when breakers crash against the shore and emit smells when wind carries the scents of flowers, fruits, and earth. Waves that strike an island bounce back and radiate outward, creating a ripple pattern that can be seen on the surface and felt against the boat.

Polynesians adapted to their environment primarily with their most valuable and adaptable organ, their brains. But their bodies adapted as well, gradually evolving a greater ability to make and store fat. Navigational skills and metabolic efficiency were critical for survival in the South Pacific until the area was overtaken by technology. Now, with electronic navigation and readily available food, the rules for survival have changed. Polynesian minds can quickly learn to use global positioning satellite receivers and radar, but their bodies are not that nimble. Their specialized adaptations for risky sea voyages have made them especially vulnerable to the dangers of overeating. The population has far higher than average rates of high blood pressure, diabetes, and massive obesity. Polynesian women suffer more than men. Women in general seem to retain fat more easily, and while this may lead them to fret over their appearance, it makes them less prone to starvation. Relatively more of their fat is under the skin. This gives them softer curves, but it also provides an extra quantity of reserve fuel. Women
also have less body mass to support and require less energy. Furthermore, in survival situations, men are more likely to be doing the physically demanding work, thereby burning up more calories. Some or all of these factors may explain why Marilyn Bailey was in much better shape than Maurice when they were rescued, and why the women in the Donner Party fared better than their husbands.

Damage done to a body by lack of food and water is repaired only slowly. Spindly legs have to be rebuilt and reconditioned. They are drastically affected because they are the largest source of muscle protein, and what wasn’t robbed from them wasted away anyway. To stay healthy, muscles must be used, and on a life raft, there aren’t many occasions to go for a long walk, or even to stand. With fats and proteins no longer being diverted for fuel, there are enough around to restart dormant body functions and repair lingering wounds. Hormones are synthesized again, giving Marilyn Bailey her first menstrual period in three months. Skin ulcers that had caused Maurice Bailey so much pain for so long suddenly healed.

The reminders of their life on the ocean receded. The castaways were no longer preoccupied by thirst and hunger or haunted by the certain knowledge that they could not hold out indefinitely against the power of the sea. Released from the imperatives of survival, they experienced the unfamiliar sensations of security, warmth, and comfort. They left the raft and rejoined society, rediscovering the luxury of moving around freely, with a delightfully unyielding surface beneath their feet. Life returned to what is normal for humans shielded by a protective civilization, where survival laws are not strictly enforced. Success no longer means merely staying alive; that’s too easy when food and shelter are readily available even to those who are not strong or smart or determined. Goals become more abstract: the acquisition of respect, recognition, approval, and then beyond that, the creation of ideas, art, and beauty. To paraphrase John Adams, “I study the strategy and tactics of war so my grandchildren can study music.”