But that's not true. It describes her as using Twitter throughout the ordeal. Most importantly, it was through Twitter that she met the ethical neurosurgeon who saved her.

Incidentally, her title references "social media" rather than Twitter, which I think is right; it's not hard to imagine, say, Facebook playing the same role. What's relevant is that she got word of her plight out to a network of people in a way that would be harder to do otherwise, and that feedback from this network led to a fundamentally different outcome than that experienced (I imagine) by most people with broken spines who are having unnecessary surgery and narcotics forced on them against their will.

Are people that responsive on Facebook?

Absolutely. I see people basically chatting in comments on status updates. I think the problem would be more about spreading the story quickly. Twitter doesn't have the "friend" requirement, ultimately making it the better tool(?) here.

I do to from time too, but I asked because personally, I rarely see people get questions answered on Facebook the way they regularly do on Twitter. But then again, the people that Twitter and get questions answered quickly are probably your blogger, big personality types too.

And then yet back on the other hand, as you say, there is no friend requirement so those big personality types could really only amplify their voice in that way over Twitter.

Perhaps the network doesn't matter as much as who you are connected with and how much they want to help. Those girls that updated their Facebook status instead of calling local emergency services after being stuck in a storm drain eventually got out because a friend called for them (see http://www.switched.com/2009/09/08/endangered-pre-teens-upda...). I'm sure there's plenty of similar stories out there.