
I wrote a story that became a legend, then discovered it wasn’t true - danso
https://www.cjr.org/first_person/tinazzi-motorcycle-mont-blanc-tunnel-fire-rescue.php
======
mindcrime
_He was just a quiet man who had tried to do the right thing in the face of an
inferno. And maybe that is enough._

Speaking as a former firefighter, I would say "Yes. Yes, that is enough."

As far as I'm concerned, _anybody_ who runs towards a fire in an attempt to
help others, when everyone else is running away, is a hero. Doesn't matter if
you're "officially" a firefighter, or anything else. If you display the
behavior, the willingness to sacrifice, the bravery, of a firefighter, then
you are one of the brotherhood. And if you pay the ultimate sacrifice in the
process, you are a hero to be cherished, whether you saved 10 people, or none.

And before anybody says it... yes, I know the old saw about "not becoming
another casualty, and one more person to be rescued" as well as anyone. I used
to teach that stuff. But at the end of the day, while we might not _want_
civilians or untrained/unequipped people running into fires, you still have to
respect and honor the courage of the people who are willing to do that.

~~~
roel_v
That's not what this story is about though (admittedly IM sometime not so HO).
It's about how seemingly small mistakes end up shaping an entirely made
version of history, even at a time when clickbait listicles and Russian troll
farms didn't control public discourse yet. If some immaterial detail like this
was so grossly wrong, what else is wrong? Is there no way to trust anything we
read? What is the value of decades of archives of websites and newspapers when
nobody has any incentive to correct or maintain any of it?

Is it time to start building a 'web of trust' for information 'chunks', as the
original PGP set out to do in the 90's for people? Should we just acknowledge
that we've lost the battle on 'finding the Truth'? Those are more material
questions that whether or not this one guy saved 0 or 10 people 20 years ago,
and whether that warrants a motorcycle tribute ride to be named after him.

~~~
kgwxd
"If some immaterial detail like this was so grossly wrong, what else is
wrong?"

Most likely everything. That is why any information that isn't reproducible
should be considered just a story, nothing more. There might be some value to
take away from it, but nothing much better than what you can get from fiction.
I don't get how anyone that has played Telephone can take history seriously,
there's just no chance of getting an accurate version. Even news from
yesterday, with recorded audio and video, doesn't capture enough to get
important details right.

~~~
peterburkimsher
"just a story" is still important if there's a lesson to learn. Whether we're
discussing Aesop's fables or religion, there are a lot of stories with real-
life application.

Reading the article made me feel deflated, powerless about the spread of
disinformation. But mindcrime's top-level comment told me what to do (risk my
life to help others), and the story made me imagine a situation when I could
do that. Even though I now know the story isn't true, the way I would apply
the lesson is still the same.

Having read the comment and thought about how my actions can change in the
future, I now feel hopeful. I'm grateful for this community for providing
that.

~~~
mindcrime
_But mindcrime 's top-level comment told me what to do (risk my life to help
others), and the story made me imagine a situation when I could do that._

Just to be clear, I'm not trying to be prescriptive here. I don't mean to tell
you to go out and look for a chance to die young by risking your life. And
even among trained emergency responders, there's a constant need to remind
people in training to not develop "hero complex" and wind up risking yourself
_needlessly_. Even firefighters do have situations where they opt for
"discretion as the better part of valor."

All I intend to say is that those people who, when presented with an emergency
situation, elect to put themselves in harms way for the sake of others, earn -
in my mind - a certain measure of nobility and special esteem. But I don't
want to encourage people to put themselves in danger when they really aren't
prepared / equipped to help. I know that seems like a subtle distinction, but
I'd encourage everyone to keep it in mind.

A heroic death may be noble, but it's still a death. And every death is a
tragedy for someone. Wives, husbands, sons, daughters, brothers, sisters,
friends, etc. may feel terrific pride in such an event, but they'll also feel
terrible pain.

------
tungwaiyip
At least Mark Gardiner has the integrity to reflect on his mistake.

------
Deimorz
The same author wrote an article about the tunnel fire in the New York Times
yesterday that talks more about the overall story:
[https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/21/business/mont-blanc-
tunne...](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/21/business/mont-blanc-tunnel-fire-
anniversary-rescue.html)

------
amacbride
_They listened as a river of incandescent margarine ignited fuel tanks and
burst the tires of abandoned vehicles._

This may be the most evocative sentence I've read this year.

~~~
zaphirplane
It needs a comma badly I read it wrong in the article and then in this comment

incandescent margarine ,{{ ignited fuel tanks and burst the tires }} of
abandoned vehicles

~~~
mirimir
Huh?

The agent: "river of incandescent margarine".

What it did: "ignited fuel tanks and burst the tires"

What it did it to: "abandoned vehicles"

I do find "incandescent" hard to imagine. Because it's just fat, and it'll
carbonize before becoming incandescent. Maybe "flaming margarine" or
something. Also, "listened" indicated that they heard, but didn't see.

It doesn't really need punctuation. But maybe this would be clearer:

They listened as a river of incandescent margarine ignited the fuel tanks, and
burst the tires, of abandoned vehicles.

Or maybe:

They listened as a river of incandescent margarine engulfed abandoned
vehicles, igniting fuel tanks and bursting tires.

~~~
mirimir
Belated edit: Maybe "river of incandescent margarine vapor". But it wouldn't
really be margarine anymore. Without enough oxygen to fully burn, it'd be
mostly a mixture of carbon particles, H2O, H2, CO and CO2. Like a candle
flame.

------
reaperducer
_I had drawn on the contemporaneous newspaper accounts in Val d’Aosta and
Chamonix for my story._

This is a good example of why re-writing another person's stories is _not_
journalism. I've been saying that for over 25 years in newsrooms across the
country. Eventually, your laziness bites you.

~~~
jsnell
But he did actually do the boots on the ground research, not just copy other
stories:

> I spent a week seeking out his family, friends, and coworkers and imploring
> them to talk to me.

> I went to the tunnel control center, and to the local ‘Carabinieri’ post,
> where I spoke to managers and cops who must have known that the accounts
> published in 1999 were exaggerated. But all the witnesses and officials were
> under gag orders, and records – including security video and recordings of
> radio traffic – were sealed due to ongoing criminal and civil
> investigations.

> As I write this, I’ve spent the last week going back over 76 pages of
> handwritten notes I made on that trip.

~~~
dkarl
He found no evidence contradicting the story, but none supporting it, either.
There's a big risk in equating the effort expended with the quality of the
final product, a lesson that applies as much in software as in journalism.

I'm very frustrated with the author for not crediting the New York Times. I
don't think it's a coincidence that the story fell apart when he was
commissioned to do a piece for an outfit with journalistic standards. It's
possible the NYT's name opened some doors for him, too, but he doesn't
describe experiencing any frustration or serious misgivings in his original
investigation. He just says "in hindsight" and "I suppose a part of me always
worried" but that's fifteen years too late. Clearly he approached it more
critically this time, but he leaves the reason for that completely unexamined.

EDIT: Also, "He was just a quiet man who had tried to do the right thing in
the face of an inferno. And maybe that is enough," clearly thinking about
himself, clearly not taking responsibility.

~~~
simen
Dude, he wrote a detailed postmortem of his own mistakes. That _is_ taking
responsibility. You're projecting, for whatever reason. The sentence about the
quiet man is clearly referencing the original hero of his story, who might not
have saved 10 people but did try to save another man's life while risking his
own.

------
lifeisstillgood
I am not sure I get this - from my reading Spadino drove into a burning
tunnel, drags another man into a refuge, calls the command to tell them where
they are but both die.

Sounds more heroic than anything I am planning on.

Why beat up on the guy because reporters at the time and afterwards got their
facts wrong.

It's not the motorcyclists fault the reporter was wrong but the sentence in
the article where the reporter describes discovering _his own mistake_
something like "married to him for years and now felt cheated on" sounds ...
awful.

~~~
AnimalMuppet
> Sounds more heroic than anything I am planning on.

I'm not sure he planned on it, either. I think sometimes people do things
because, when they find themselves in the situation, they can't _not_ do it.
(But I'm still alive, so what do I know?)

~~~
JohnBooty
In my extremely limited experience, which was at least an order of magnitude
much much much less dangerous and spectacular, yeah I just kind of did the
thing. There was no conscious choice involved there.

What's funny is once you're doing the thing it's not so automatic. You are
making conscious decisions at that point. Except your brain feels like a
supercomputer because of adrenaline or whatever else is flooding the system.

In hindsight of course I know I was probably flopping around like an
overweight fish out of water hahaha

------
grkvlt
Because the truck carried flour and margarine, I was hoping the legend was
going to be something about the fire started by the crash making a multi-ton
sponge cake in the tunnel... Never mind...

------
DoctorOetker
that page looks empty with uBlock origin...

~~~
roywiggins
Everything has "visibility: hidden !important;" set on it, for some reason,
and it's only unhidden when Javascript runs.

~~~
tomatotomato37
I think its some weird wordpress script for emojis (wp-emoji-release.min.js),
since I'm finding articles on taking it out of your own sites that mention
render-blocking

