Hypothetical: Who do you save

[Thorn]

Hypothetical: Who do you save You are fortified into a one level home. You have limited ammo from days worth of defending it from an ever increasing mob of zombies banging on your boarded windows and doors. It is only a matter of time before they get in and you know it. As you start to make plans to escape, the worst imaginable thing happens a truck being driven by a panicked and wounded driver screams down the street and smashes through the large bay window before you. The wall is destroyed and the determined and agitated zombies (the ones not feeding on the driver) start to stream into the house. Everyone in your family is there (mother, father, brother, sister, children, step people), for the sake of discussions let’s include girlfriends and boyfriends as well. As the dead invade you are the closest to the rear exit. You expend all but two of your bullets trying to stem the flow of undead into your “sanctuary”. The zombies are upon your friends and family now and it becomes clear to you that people are going to die here. You believe you can save one person for sure maybe two but trying for the second could get you all killed. The question is what you do. Who do you save?

[Bub666]

If I have to pick between my wife and my son,I'd choose to save my son.I love my wife,but I couldn't bear to have anything bad happen to my son.I would rather die myself then let anything happen to him.

[SymphonicX]

This is an evil question....what's the point in saving anyone if they're just going to go through more of that again?

[Thorn]

Well, I do not know if it is an “evil” question. It really is a tough question though. It is hard to say what you would do, to actually confront in your own mind that you hold peoples life and death in your hands. Some people make these decisions every day, others of us can only sit and wonder. In a world over run by the dead I imagine you would be making a lot of hard decisions all the time, or just kind of going with the herd. In this situation I save my 6 year old daughter, I would not risk her life to try and save anyone else if it looked like there was a strong chance I was going to fail and cause them both to die. In fact I have said to my now estranged wife that if ever it came down to it and she could only ever help me or our Daughter to not even stop to think. Just save our daughter. Not about the living dead mind you, about fires and accidents and such. I imagine it is a much different question if you do not have children. I did ask one person though once and he said to me if I could not save both my wife and child I would kill them both and let myself die as well because I could not live with knowing I had to decide. I found that an interesting answer that really made me think.

[Bub666]

This is an evil question....what's the point in saving anyone if they're just going to go through more of that again? You got a point there.Even if you save someone,they could die five minutes later.

[Neil]

For all the effort that's gone into this question, it's basically impossible to properly answer. You cannot really logically contemplate what would be an illogical, made in a split-second reaction... Who happens to be the nearest to you? How scared are you at the moment (we all have good/bad moments)? Run a simulation 10 times, you'd get a number of different outcomes...

[RustyHicks]

That is just too damn hard to answer. I have a wife, daughter and son. I would try and save my kids. Even if I gets me killed.

[3pidemiC]

Girlfriend. We've been together for 6 years now, so yeah....her...

[Legion2213]

Very challenging post, Thorn. I can't answer though, it's just too tough. Edit: It's a bit harsh to call this an "Evil Question" folks, it is very likely that we could be confronted with just this kind of question in a worst case scenario during a zack apocalypse

[darth los]

It's definitely not an evil question. We have to remember guys, the way we live now with technology and other comforts is not the natural state of things. Anything could throw our civilization into chaos. With that said, there are times and professions where even today choices like this are made everyday. I would hate to have to make that choice. I couldn't live knowing i let on of them die. If it was only two then i'd save my wife and son and sacrifice myself.

[Thorn]

Really great points all around. The trick is to not get too wrapped up in it. If you were writing a novel you would consider all these things. If I was to ask you which zombie you would shoot as they bore down on you then you might want to know anything that was obscuring the shot, innocents in the way, wind speed and trajectory, lighting and so on. We could of course dissect the question at length. But in the hypothetical posed, I merely put it at a base level and level the details out. While I respect everyone's points and agree that there is so much more you could/should consider I am just saying in a hypothetical situation, if you could save one person for sure, or maybe two but that it was very risky to try that who would you save. I like Darths answer a lot by the way, it is one I had not thought of and is outside the box. Sacrifice yourself to try and save two others. Thanks for the good feedback all.

[Zombie Snack]

I would save whoever was the most saveable..If the entire extended family is there as the question asks, someone is going to be the easiest, quickest to get to, then the next quickest, time may only allow 1 or 2 chances to save someone, I would make my attempts, then after realizing which of my loved ones had survived or which had been killed I would make the decision whether to keep fighting for who was left, or have no will at all to continue on after loosing my most dear and loved family members and shoot myself in the head. I imagine there comes a point when there aint no good reason to keep fighting, but I'm gonna fight like hell til that time comes.

[lullubelle]

How could anyone choose, I love my mom and would not let anything happen to her, I have two grown children, the loves of my life, would die first before I let anything happen to them and could not live with myself if I did not save any of them, there is no way to choose, if something happens to any of them, i would want to go too, I guess the family that dies together, rises together and eat everybody else together, starting with you THORN for putting us in this predicament

[sandrock74]

Looking at this logically, it sounds like you don't have time to stand around and go thru a mental checklist of whose around and who would you save. In this kind of situation, you "save" the person nearest to you and beat feet! Thats it. Escaping out the back should be a bit easier, since all the zombies (if there were any in the rear) would all be drawn around to the front of the house where all the racket is.

[darth los]

Really great points all around. The trick is to not get too wrapped up in it. If you were writing a novel you would consider all these things. If I was to ask you which zombie you would shoot as they bore down on you then you might want to know anything that was obscuring the shot, innocents in the way, wind speed and trajectory, lighting and so on. We could of course dissect the question at length. But in the hypothetical posed, I merely put it at a base level and level the details out. While I respect everyone's points and agree that there is so much more you could/should consider I am just saying in a hypothetical situation, if you could save one person for sure, or maybe two but that it was very risky to try that who would you save. I like Darths answer a lot by the way, it is one I had not thought of and is outside the box. Sacrifice yourself to try and save two others. Thanks for the good feedback all. When i took vows to my wife and made the decision to have my son i took on a very solemn resposibility. Making sure they're o.k is my job and i take it very seriously. If they get killed and i'm anything less than dead that means i failed.