I love the internet. For most people who know me, online or in real life, this will come as as  much of a surprise as Barrack Obama calling a press conference to let people know, just in case they missed it, that he is the first black President of the United States. I love everything about the web, including social networking sites like Twitter, but Friday, the 20 March, 2009, was the first time I really felt the power of this community.

I had meant to write this blog post on Saturday morning but haven’t had time since Friday night to really site down and get my thoughts out properly.

A week before Friday a family member collapsed at their home. He had had ongoing health issues for some years, but this seemed like an unrelated problem and he was flown by helicopter to RPA Hospital in Sydney. The doctors managed to stabilise him and he was eventually moved from the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) to a normal ward for monitoring.

However, last Friday night, within a few hours of his most recent visitor leaving, he developed a quickly spreading rash and his vitals began dropping. The doctors contacted us to let us know they were moving him from the ward back down into the ICU, and that it would be prudent to contact family and friends to get them to the hospital as soon as possible.

They said this with a gravitas which implied with no uncertainty they didn’t expect the patient to survive through the night.

While we organised cars to fetch other relatives, it dawned on us that no one would have informed two of his closest friends. They had been friends since school, but when he had been sick previously he had contacted them himself. This time he was far too sick and we had no way of knowing how to get in touch, which is when I posted this:

The response, both from people retweeting the message and those who sent information, was amazing:

Given the situation, it hadn’t occurred to any of us that he, of course, would most likely be listed under Anthony, or A, in the white pages. People went above and beyond though, with information from numerous other sources quickly flooding my inbox. I was, to say the least, pretty moved:

I wrote down all the information we got, to remove duplicates and so as to avoid contacting anyone twice, and then began scanning for the most likely target. As it turned out, based on the information people had provided and new info I had just received (marital status etc) the first number we rang yielded this result:

I intend to make good on that promise by the way. If your name is listed at the bottom of this post, I, Warlach, owe you a beer, or equivalent beverage of your choice, at the first opportunity.

While tracking down friends and family was great, it didn’t of course change the reason we needed to contact them in the first place. For awhile it looked like it could all be over, before he suddenly began to respond to the medication and stabilised:

This is mostly due to the fact the doctors didn’t, and still don’t, know exactly what is wrong with him. But he is now visibly improving every day and while he remains in the ICU, is hopefully out of the woods for now. All that was left to do was hang around a hospital in the middle of the night:

Looking back, it’s not that Twitter surprised me with being able to find the information. It’s been noted time and again just how quickly the Twitter community can respond, as with the Hudson River plane crash. What really amazed me though was the effort people put in to help someone they barely know.

I’ve met a few of the people who responded in real life, but only briefly. I was incredibly moved by the way people came together to help us, and it’s certainly cemented in my mind that people who criticise online communities as actually distancing human emotion/interaction have a lot to learn.

Finally, a big thank you goes out to everybody who helped:

Mspecht, ScottRhodie, Tdm911, Radioproducer1, Bethanie, Yonderboy, Mellalicious, JulzM, Katreeeena, TweetTomnow and anyone else I may have accidentally left off.