At approximately 8:45, on the morning of December 6, 1917, two ships collided in the Canadian harbor of Halifax, Nova Scotia. The collision wasn’t bad, nothing more than a minor fender bender. But some of the barrels of highly flammable fuel, stored on the deck of the French munitions ship, SS Mont-Blanc, spilled. The combination of sparks and fumes ignited a fire. The fire quickly grew out of control, leading to an explosion that rocked the harbor twenty minutes later.
The blast, equivalent to approximately 2.9 kilotons of TNT, was the largest man-made explosion the world had experienced, to that point. It demolished nearly everything in a half-mile radius and destroyed or badly damaged every building in a 1.6-mile radius. Pieces of the ship landed as far away as 3.5 miles to the north and 2 miles to the south. Cape Breton and Prince Edward Island, 129 and 110 miles away, felt the blast. It temporarily exposed the harbor floor and sent a tsunami, as high as 60 feet above the high-water mark on the Halifax side of the harbor, racing to shore. What the blast’s pressure wave didn’t demolish, the resulting tsunami and fires, from overturned stoves and lamps, did. Almost 2,000 people were killed and 9,000 injured.
Did You Know those who survived the harbor explosion believed the German’s had bombed the city? It isn’t surprising when you realize Halifax Harbor was one of the British Royal Navy’s most important bases in North America during World War I.
The Hero
While the loss of human life was horrific, it could have been worse, if not for an Intercolonial Railway (now Canadian Government Railways) dispatcher. Patrick Vincent Coleman (age 45) and a co-worker heard of the potential danger from a sailor and started to flee. Then Patrick remembered—they were expecting a passenger train soon. He turned around and ran back to the station and began sending urgent telegraph messages to stop the train. He knew he probably wouldn’t survive, but he didn’t let that stop him. One of his messages, now housed in the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic, reads: “Hold up the train. Ammunition ship afire in harbor making for Pier 6 and will explode. Guess this will be my last message. Good-bye boys.”
His heroic actions did result in his death, but his messages stopped all incoming trains, saving the lives of hundreds of people.
What is a Hero?
Wikipedia defines a hero as “A person who, in the face of danger, combats adversity through feats of ingenuity, courage, or strength.” Notice it doesn’t say “A person who, in the face of danger, gives their life to combat adversity through feats of ingenuity, courage, or strength.”
Actually, I believe you can be a hero without facing danger or adversity or sacrificing your life. Doing something for someone because they can’t do it themselves, often makes you a hero in their eyes. The other person faces the adversity, but when your actions save them from that adversity, you’re a hero. For example, helping a handicapped person reach an item on the top shelf of a grocery store may seem trivial to you, but is a heroic action to that person who can’t get out of the wheelchair.
You may not run into burning buildings to save people or put yourself between an armed assailant and an innocent bystander, but anyone can be a hero any day of the week. Actions, regardless of whether they’re life-threatening or not, produce heroes. As we enter this season of giving, let’s all strive to be someone’s hero every day.
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