Ryan knew them when he saw them: classic signs of psychological shock. Confusion, disorientation, inability to think clearly and decisively. Like a passenger on a sinking ship, unable to move, unable to take positive action, because they can’t grasp the reality of what’s happening. Waiting to be told what to do, waiting for someone in a uniform to rescue them, paralysed with shock until it is too late. Scientists called it acute stress disorder: the brain basically went into a freeze mode where it became detached, numb, with reduced awareness of its immediate surroundings. The common denominator in people who tend to surrender to death like lambs when things go badly, catastrophically wrong.