I would like to respond directly to the comments of "brazilvi" dated 6/8/06. Your comments about the movie itself containing irresponsible inaccuracies are perfectly fair and I agree with them. However, your comments which reflect your knowledge of the incident are absolutely ridiculous and reflect a complete lack of responsibility. While I appreciate your "observation" and "research" of the incident, allow me to speak from a position of being, in all fairness, more informed - as I am a survivor of this tragedy that occurred 20 years ago next month. As such, I can assure you that your comment that "In real life, all the children who drowned were morbidly obese and did not know how to swim" is complete ignorant speculation on your part which is also, in fact, untrue.
Not only is your uninformed, sweeping assertion of the victims' weight and swimming abilities completely incorrect (since I knew each one of them personally, you'll have to take my word for it), but your allusion to their ability to swim somehow being a "factor that contributed to all these children dying" only further displays your complete ignorance of the circumstance surrounding the incident. Picture a water level rising 30 40 feet in under 60 seconds with the current forces strong enough to lift mature trees over 6 feet in diameter completely out of the ground and carry them down stream. Have even an Olympic gold medalist's swimming ability in that circumstance would be as useful as having the ability to throw a 100 mph fastball directly at an oncoming locomotive. At that point, it's simply in God's (or, if you prefer, fate's) hands.
Further, to state that "3 Bible camp school buses were being driven by unlicensed teenagers" is equally ignorant and void of any factual knowledge whatsoever. There were 2 buses and a van directly involved in the incident. As I was seated in one, and witnessed all three traveling (and, again, personally knew the drivers) I can assure that all three were licensed adults.
Lastly, your suggestion that the news chopper with a rope could have saved "most of the children clinging to the trees" but, instead chose to film is also ridiculous and untrue. While an untrained television crew with only a rope is not the ideal circumstance for rescue (versus a well-equipped, highly-trained rescue team), the crew did, in fact, make several attempts at rescuing victims, but with no success. Many of us witnessed these unsuccessful attempts personally. I can assure you, those memories are ones I would much rather forget. Suffice it to say that had they continued these efforts, the chances of the victim count being much higher than 10 is very likely. Nevertheless, they did at least try.
Finally, I do agree with one other thing you stated, which is the title of your comment: "The real heroes were the kids." The rest of your irresponsibly ignorant babble is embarrassing for you and is disrespectful to the living and deceased victims of that terrible tragedy. You should be ashamed of yourself.
