In 2012, A twenty-two year old Virginia girl named Lauren lifted a car off of her father. Her father had jacked up his car while he was fixing it; however, the jack had slipped and the car pinned down on him. Lauren spun into action and with superhuman like strength she lifted the car of him and performed CPR and saved his life.

You can look up many more stories similar to this one. So why can these people gain this supernatural strength? What is a scientific explanation for these stories? The hypotheses that some people came up with is that fear enhances our physical and mental capabilities.  For instance watch this video and take this guy as an example:

He outran a hippo, which is the leading killer of humans in Africa. Out of fear his physical capabilities allowed him to outrun a hippo which can run up to about 19 mph. This is the same idea of what gives people the strength to lift cars off of children. The reasoning behind it is that our body naturally restricts our physical capabilities to lower the chance of use gaining an injury. Thus, we can only use about 65 percent of our body’s physical capabilities. On the contrary, fear enables us to bypass this restraints and use around 80 percent of our physical capabilities. This hypotheses holds true to many people because all the stories in comparison has individuals who have fear and then fulfilling an unbelievable feat.

Although this hypotheses sounds to be true, there is no factual data to support it. Therefore, there are contradicting views that disagree with the fear conclusion. Yes, it is true that our bodies restrict our physical capabilities; however, we cannot control fear so we cannot just turn fear on and pick up a car in a split second before it crushes someone. Also, one more major objection to the fear hypotheses would be since fear increases our body strength only about 15 percent then it would be impossible for let’s say a 100 pound women to lift a 3,000 pound car off of a child. With that being said this stories might be nothing more than just stories. I’d like to hear what my fellow classmates think and what do you decide… Does fear make you superhero or are these stories something to tell your children to let them know it is okay to be scared?

Wise, Jeff. “Yes, You Really Can Lift a Car Off a Trapped Child.” Psychology Today: Health, Help, Happiness + Find a Therapist. Sussex Publishers, 4 Nov. 2010. Web. 04 Oct. 2014.

“Hysterical Strength.” Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 10 Jan. 2014. Web. 04 Oct. 2014.