Social Networking in Times of Stress and Personal Emergencies

I recently had a family vacation turn into a nightmare. But that nightmare was mitigated in part due to the power of social networking.

There is a lot of discussion about the value of Web 2.0 tools in educational settings. But I want to share this decidedly personal experience about how a social networking tool—a blog— helped my family make it a through a time of extreme emergency and stress, both physically, and emotionally.

While staying with friends in Bonaire (in the Lesser Antilles, part of the A-B-C islands, 50 miles north off the coast of Venezuela) my wife suffered a life-threatening infection to her lower intestine. While Bonaire has a relatively effective local hospital, it quickly became obvious that my wife would need more sophisticated health facilities if she were to survive.

Skype was literally a lifesaver in the resulting frenzy of phone calls to contact our stateside insurance carrier and coordinate international communications between the hospital in Bonaire and distant health providers. Within eighteen hours, I was able to arrange an air ambulance to retrieve us from the tiny island and fly us to the nearest qualified medical facility in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida.

But now I found myself three thousand miles from home in an unfamiliar place with no friends, no family, no connection to the community, and my unconscious wife going into surgery. That’s when I found a whole new dimension to social networking.

A friend called to offer support, and told me about CaringBridge, a nonprofit, free online service developed to keep friends and family connected during critical illness, treatment and recovery. CaringBridge offered what amounted to a well-designed blog where I could publish our story to friends and family, keep them informed of progress with journal entries, and post pictures taken with my cell phone. As much as I liked phone calls from concerned friends and family, it would quickly become exhausting to repeat our drama to each caller. The blog solved this problem elegantly.

And most importantly, the blog provided a means for others to post messages in a guestbook, that I (and later my wife) and site visitors could read. It was here that I recovered my connection to friends and family that sustained and guided me through some very difficult emotional terrain. The power of a social network lies here, in developing community.

I have been very involved with Web 2.0 technologies, both at work and in my private life; but this particular incident will stand out in my memory as the most powerful on-line experience I have ever had.

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