Ben Carson: Pompeii Victims Should Have Outrun Lava

By Andy Borowitz, The New Yorker

08 October 15

The article below is satire. Andy Borowitz is an American comedian and New York Times-bestselling author who satirizes the news for his column, "The Borowitz Report."

itizens of the Roman town of Pompeii who were victims of Mt. Vesuvius’s eruption in 79 A.D. could have survived if they had “just outrun the lava,” the neurosurgeon Ben Carson told Fox News on Wednesday.

“Most of the plaster casts we have of Pompeii victims show them basically just lying down and whatnot,” he said. “If I had been in Pompeii and I heard Mt. Vesuvius erupting, you can bet I would have made a run for it.”

He said another option open to residents of Pompeii would have been “to fight the volcano.”

“Archeologists estimate that the population of Pompeii was about eleven thousand,” he said. “You can’t tell me that if eleven thousand people put their minds to it they couldn’t beat one volcano.”

Carson said he would spend the next week on the campaign trail dispensing helpful tips about how people can defeat earthquakes, tsunamis, and giant asteroids.