There are all kinds of unspoken and silly assumptions behind the question.
First, how do you KNOW you can only save one person? Are you really the ONLY fireman who can possibly get either of them out of harm’s way?
And what are the odds that a fireman will ever have to rescue someone he actually KNOWS? I doubt whether one fireman or cop in a million has ever had to rescue members of his own family while on the job.
Let me set aside questions of whether I’d save my wife or my Mom. OBVIOUSLY, I’d want to save both. I’d feel the same way even if the two ladies in the burning building were strangers to me.
But IF it appeared that I could only get one person out of the building… I wouldn’t judge by which one I loved more or which one was older/younger. I’d save the one nearest to me, or (more generally) the one it would be easier to get to and get out of the building.
If the situation is genuinely SO dire that only one can be saved (really? There’s no way I can contact my captain and ask for backup?), I’d pick the one I’m more sure of my ability to rescue. If Mom is right next to me, near the fire stairs, and my wife is far away trapped under a beam, I grab Mom and get her out (and vice versa). If I do anything but the easier thing, I risk getting all three of us killed.
Think of it like hospital triage. When there’s a huge medical emergency, doctors don’t decide who to treat based on which patients they like or which patients have more years ahead of them. They ask, “Which people will probably be okay for a while, which people can we save with immediate effort, and which people are probably doomed no matter what we do?” And they make the hard choice to ignore the people who are probably doomed.
I’d save the person who seemed to have the best chance of survival.
This is a tough one, but I’d go for the significant other. Then, I go back in for mom, since I don’t have kids, so I’m willing to take the chance.
Less than six months agp I learned something startling about my maternal grandparents. My grandmother once went to their pastor for advice. She was torn between caring for her own mother, who was living with her and my grandfather. My great grandmother was becoming senile, losing continence, basically becoming a toddler again. Grandma wanted to care for her but it was taking so much time her own family was being left out, and my grandfather said his mother in law should go into nursing care. If she didn’t he would consider leaving her.
The pastor told my grandmother that her kids and husband came first, that when she’d married that was part of the deal. So my great grandmother went to a home.
If a spouse coming first was good enough for my grandmother it is good enough for me.
Wife v. mother? Easy choice. My mom’s 89, she was an awful mother when I was growing up for reasons I won’t go into here, and our relationship during my adulthood has been more problematic than anything else. I love my wife, and am glad I get to spend the rest of my life with her. Bye, mom.
Just from an evolutionary perspective, saving your mum makes no sense. My mum is the best mum I could have ever hoped for, but saving my wife (who is also the best wife I could have ever hoped for) at least raises the chance of continuing the genetic lineage. Mum will live on in the form of grandkids, but if my wife dies, then what?
I voted neither. I’m not a trained emergency responder. I would probably make all sorts of mistakes that would endanger other people. I would also probably just create a situation where the trained responders have yet another person to rescue.
