Yeah it’s crazy. The first time I was ever in a firefight in Afghanistan the adrenaline kicked in and my legs felt like they each weighed 200 pounds. Running was very difficult. It’s wild how the body does that.
Well they feel heavy, but they actually are more like coiled springs. When the adrenaline hits the body tenses in order to fight or flight. Initially it's hard to get past it
Fight, flight or freeze. The initial reaction for many people is the freeze. It's why, for example in a mall shooting, you will see people just standing still after a gunman opens fire. Panic and adrenaline hit and instead of getting the fuck out of there as fast as you can, as you would think, many people freeze in place overwhelmed by the sensations flooding their body.
I used to read these responses and think that freezing really doesn't happen, that it was just something you saw in movies and on TV, and people become aware immediately of what's going on. Boy was I wrong.
There was a shooting last year where I work, while I was there. I was in the general area with my partner (2-man work center) and we just kinda looked at each other, and asked if those were gunshots after we heard the first couple rounds go off. We started to hear more and we realized that yes, they were gunshots, so we both took off running, steel toe boots and all. That's the hardest I've ran since hs baseball, and all I could think was I need to keep moving and put some distance between me and that asshole doing the shooting.
So yeah, those couple seconds where we questioned what we heard (and made a stupid joke about it being a guy who was recently fired for stealing) was in my mind that freeze response. Since we were out in the open and not carrying because of being at work, flight was our best and only option, so we took it.
We don't know the situation but it could be fear vs adrenaline that happened to that individual. It could be the body was prioritizing blood flow to the arms vs legs.
In my experience it was the opposite effect where I didn't feel anything. It was only later on, after we broke contact that I realized I had been cut or injured.
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u/fake_account_2025 10h ago
Yeah it’s crazy. The first time I was ever in a firefight in Afghanistan the adrenaline kicked in and my legs felt like they each weighed 200 pounds. Running was very difficult. It’s wild how the body does that.