Disaster victims teamed up on day after quake to deliver baby

[AsahinaKimi]

Yuki Terada, right, and her husband Kosaku, left, hold their baby boy Shunsuke at their home in Suginami Ward, Tokyo, on April 17. (Mainichi)

On March 12, the day after the Great East Japan Earthquake, people at one evacuation shelter combined their strength to help an expectant mother safely deliver her child amidst trying circumstances.

Tokyo resident Yuki Terada, 35, was visiting her parents' home in Ishinomaki, Miyagi Prefecture. Ahead of her scheduled birth on March 25, she had come back to temporarily stay in her hometown in mid-February. On the morning of March 11, she had an examination and was told that her pregnancy was proceeding smoothly. That afternoon, the earthquake struck.

Together with her 37-year-old sister Ai Nakamura and their two parents, she tried to flee to higher ground, but the tsunami was too fast. The water level on the road in front of her parents' house quickly rose, and soon the first floor of the house was submerged. The four just barely made it to the safety of the second floor. Once there, however, Terada began having abdominal pains. Her water had broken.

http://mdn.mainichi.jp/mdnnews/news/20110419p2a00m0na019000c.html

[Celebration]

1. that brought tears to my eyes n/t

[Riley18]

2. Beautiful story! My own grandson was born on March 13:)

[malaise]

3. Lovely

Thanks

[Peace Patriot]

4. Absolutely lovely story of friendship and compassion by strangers who were themselves victims

of the earthquake and tsunami. Also a harrowing story. The laboring mother nearly drowned in the tsunami. It was also snowing--cold and exposure were additional dangers. A warm, safe place was created for her by the actions of many people. Police, cut off from all outside help, rescued her from her parents' flooded house and got her to an evacuation center but it was very cold there. A woman appeared and offered a home on high ground. Nurses were located and began preparations. Some traveled through the disaster-stricken town to find medical/birthing supplies. The homeowner prepared a futon, got a heater going and boiled water. Yuki Terada was moved to the home and, in the most comfortable circumstances possible, in that situation, gave birth to a healthy baby boy.

I'm sure that for a few moments at least, everyone in distress--some who had lost loved ones, some who were cut off from family, some injured, all cold, hungry, traumatized and exhausted--got to feel joy and hope, as I do now. Human beings can be so lovely at times--capable of such extraordinary acts of unselfishness and of identification with the sufferings and happiness of others. We are capable of such nobility! If only we could live up to our potential more often!

The new baby's father said, "I want him to become someone who will help others in need." That is something we can all aspire to. But more than this, I am struck by the collective effort in this story--those moments when we attune to each other and work together to insure someone else's well-being and happiness. We sometimes do this almost automatically, not even realizing what we are doing. It happens every day, in numerous different human situations. But sometimes it is a quite special moment of realizing who we are--cooperators. We are communal creatures. The greed culture of "rugged individualism" is a false overlay of our communal nature. It is perpetrated by the few who delude themselves that they don't need society or others' help. If they just get enough money, they can buy their own emergency services, so they think. But in a 9.0 earthquake and the worst tsunami in history, they might well be caught in situations that money can't buy them out of. They might be hit with life-threatening injuries, or their wife giving birth, or suffering exposure and hunger, and find themselves utterly dependent on people whom they may have robbed and deprived, to get rich. And then the human community--our communal nature, our inherent kindness and compassion--comes to their rescue.

I believe that this is our dominant characteristic--communality--and why we have survived and succeeded so well as a species. There are other things, of course--our intelligence, creativity and dexterity; our upright motion; our opposable thumbs; our ambition; our adventurousness. But no architect or pianist or scientist would be worth much to anybody all alone on an island. It is our communal CONTEXT that makes human achievement POSSIBLE. If that baby, born in disaster, with the help of so many, grows up to be "someone who helps others in need," it will be because of the community that he is part of, as much as his own noble nature. Our communality is our nobility. Without it, there is no such thing as a hero.