What makes someone a hero?

On Saturday, a radio program on altruism introduced me to The Carnegie Hero Fund.  The stories of heroism are inspirational.  You can read the stories on the Carnegie a Hero Fund website, but hearing the recipients speak, takes the stories from dry facts on paper to real people involved in extraordinary experiences.  Why did they do it?  What were they thinking?  Download the podcast, "I Need a Hero" from the link below.

RadioLab
The Good Show
If natural selection boils down to survival of the fittest, how do you explain why one creature might stick its neck out for another? This week, tune in to your local station for stories on niceness as a scalpel.

 

Carnegie Hero Fund Awards

“We live in a heroic age,” Andrew Carnegie wrote in the opening lines of the Commission’s founding Deed of Trust in 1904. “Not seldom are we thrilled by deeds of heroism where men or women are injured or lose their lives in attempting to preserve or rescue their fellows.”

Carnegie’s “hero fund,” administered by a 21-member commission in Pittsburgh, was charged with honoring whom he called the “heroes of civilization,” whose lifesaving actions put them in stark contrast to the “heroes of barbarism, (who) maimed or killed” their fellow man. That the mission of the Hero Fund as set forth by Carnegie is unchanged over more than a century, despite massive upheaval in the social and world order, is testament both to his foresight and to essentially unchanging human nature.

The Commission’s working definition of a hero as well as its requirements for awarding remain largely those that were approved by the founder. The candidate for an award must be a civilian who voluntarily risks his or her life to an extraordinary degree while saving or attempting to save the life of another person. The rescuer must have no full measure of responsibility for the safety of the victim. There must be conclusive evidence to support the act’s occurrence, and the act must be called to the attention of the Commission within two years.