The Face Of Queensland Tragedy
The November 2010 flood in the eastern state of Queensland, Australia, was one of the most severe on the continent in recent times. It created large-scale havoc, and took a heavy toll in human and animal lives.
Jordan Rice was racing to safety in a car with his mother and a young brother, leaving the town of Toowoomba, when the rising water engulfed the car. When a rescuer reached the car and tried to pull Jordan out of the stranded vehicle, the boy asked him to save his 10-year-old brother, Blake, instead.
Warren McErlean, the rescuer, pulled Blake to safety and went back to the car to save Jordan and his mother, Donna. However, before he could reach the car, a rope that was securing the two endangered, snapped. The car flipped over, and Jordan and Donna were swept away by the torrent of floodwater. They both perished.
McErlean visibly looked distraught during an interview on Australian television, as he expressed his sadness at his failure to save the victims, “I just kept telling the boy (Jordan) that it was going to be alright, but it wasn't. I just feel terrible for himself and his family. I just couldn't get him out.”
In the time of great natural calamities, one person often emerges as the face of the tragedy; in Australia's deadly flood, it was Jordan. On Twitter, a deluge of tweets knighted him as the “true hero” of the Queensland floods.
The example that Jordan set was the finest demonstration of all that is good in human beings, something that makes humans the envy of the gods. Jordan was only 13, but he would live in the memory of countless men and women as someone who exhibited rare selfless traits that most never acquire in their entire lifetimes.
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