Brave

by Mark Whittaker

Would you squeeze your way into a shoulder-width, pitch-dark stormwater drain to rescue a kid as it flooded? Would you knowingly cop a 20,000 volt electric shock to save a friend and his child? Would you swim out from the beach to rescue a man bitten by a five-metre white pointer, while the shark is still circling him? Would you run into the carnage of a burning Bali nightclub to save people when anyone who can still walk is running the other way?These are decisions made in a split-second by ordinary people placed in extraordinary circumstances. Yet those decisions can - and usually do - have an impact that lasts a lifetime. So what happens to these ordinary heroes once the newspaper headlines have disappeared and the medal-award ceremony is a distant memory? Mark Whittaker, Walkley-Award winning journalist and author, has written a unique account that follows men and women in amazing acts of bravery - and then the long aftermath as they deal with an array of issues - from guilt to post-traumatic stress - that were the furthest things from their minds when they made that split-second decision to risk their own life for someone else's.Brave is, in every sense of the word, extraordinary - both in its approach, the people it describes and honours, and in the effect it has on the reader. It is compelling, complex, heart-breaking and uplifting.

299 pages, Kindle Edition

First published August 1, 2011

Reviews

[Melita Robinson · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 A great collection of crazy stories that doesn’t shy away from the psychological impact of the events on the everyday heroes.

[Lyn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great reading. The stories of bravery within and the legacy of that bravery is both sad and uplifting.

[Scott Houston · Rating 4 out of 5]

very very good insight on the heroics of everyday extraordinary people and the aftermath of their heroics and the toll it takes in the mind.