As Terrorist Acts Break Out, What is it that Drives a Person Run Towards Danger?

During an blade-carrying assailant wearing a imitation suicide belt triggered fear on London Bridge in 2019, Darryn Frost recalls experiencing a zone of intense clarity.

Having grabbed a ornamental narwhal tusk from the display of Fishmongers’ Hall, the previously introverted civil servant locked onto the attacker and sprinted towards it, helping restrain the perpetrator to the ground.

It is unclear why Frost went from bystander to “courageous intervener”, in a manner echoing individuals who have responded in crisis situations, such as an individual who disarmed a weapon off an assailant on Sydney’s Bondi Beach.

For Frost, his reasoning is neither straightforward nor primal. He has discussed the incident with another individual who was on temporary leave from prison at the time and employed a chair to assist in subduing the knife-man. “He said he acted on instinct, but I was thinking about every action and consequence of it,” Frost said.

When the London Bridge attack began inside the hall, Frost said chaos and confusion took hold. “There was shrieks, commotion, no one understood what was going on and I suspect it would have been the similar on Bondi Beach.”

Running into danger, he emphasized, was not a natural response. “I don’t believe it is instinctive to anybody. I saw a young woman fall, and she was obviously critically wounded. So the following idea in my mind was: ‘I need to prevent that from happening to someone else’.”

He said what ensued felt surreal: “It’s incredible, but this was all unfolding in an instant. It really is like superhero movies, where time effectively slows down for you.”

He said his perceptions narrowed to a single point: the attacker. “I had hyper-focused sight,” he recalled. “My hearing tuned out everything around me except for the attacker in front of me. It’s a truly peculiar thing. Alarms were blaring, I couldn't perceive that. All I could hear was what he was saying.”

“My vision went tunnel vision just on to him so anything in the edges I couldn’t see, and what I could see was incredibly detailed like ultra-clear video. I can even now recall the particles of dust in the air.”

“The way you understand what’s unfolding changes what you’ll do, and your perceptions are influenced by prejudice and expectations.”

A expert in neuroscience commented that humans, like all mammals, possess a natural “fight or flight” reaction to danger or surprise, but it does not determine the chosen behavior they choose.

“It prepares your body, and to some extent your brain, for movement, but the action that you undertake relies on a number of other things,” he said.

“The brain often decides before we are aware. There’s very good evidence to say that lots of things in the brain which influence your actions take place prior to you’re aware of them.”

He said the kind of heroism that caused people to run towards danger while others were running away was shaped not by “innate reflex”, but by life experiences and any training they may have had.

Recently, a ex-military man was hailed as a brave individual for jumping into a car that had plowed into crowds.

Lack of a Predictable Profile for a Hero

A professor in workplace health psychology, who has a specialist interest in mass violence, said there was no “predictable template” of the sort of person who would “have a go”.

“It’s equally probable to be an protective mother in defence mode as it could be a athletic sports-playing male,” said the academic. “That’s reassuring because that implies that perpetrators, lone wolves or terrorists, they’re never quite sure who’s going to be the challenger who could confront them.”

A Courageous Football Fan

During a previous London Bridge attack, a 56-year-old football fan was repeatedly knifed in his hands, chest and skull as he tried to resist three knife-wielding terrorists with his bare hands.

“Fuck you, I’m Millwall,” he allegedly declared after the men entered a venue.

“They’d come in and kicked the door open, and that’s when the three of them began attacking me. I began to resist with them, but it gave that 20 or 30 people a window to escape past me. It nearly took my life,” he recalled.

“I was fighting for my life. Punching and punching. [I was stabbed] multiple times and slashed in the head as well... I broke my ribs when I went back into the table. But fortunately – my arm’s a bit weak still – but no permanent major damage. It’s only the psychological impact aftermath that really affected me.”

Called the “Lion of London Bridge”, he said he made a lightning-fast decision to step in.

“You should run. [But] you can be an fool and take three on,” he said. “There was an elderly gentleman with us, about 78, and I think that was the motivation why I didn't run. But clearly it gave other people a opportunity to escape as well.”

He was not formally honoured for his actions and did not receive financial redress for his injuries, something he attributed to past legal issues. Despite this, he said he would not hesitate to help again.

“I’ve not had any boxing training or anything like that. [But] I’ve performed something good. Whether that offsets the mistakes I’ve done, who knows?”