Acting Journal VI: 2/3/15 Crises in public areas
When I was younger, I had experience that never quite left me. I was about 19-20 years old, and was serving as a missionary in a stretch of highway in Venezuala known as "punta gorda" (fat point) at the time. This was a very developed area, as it was just outside of Cabimas, opposite the city of Maricabo, on Lake Maricabo. (that's where all the OIL is in Venezuela btw.) One night, after a full day's of proselytizing, my companion and I were trying to get a cab home, when we saw a guy, holding a towel to his head, that was bleeding quite profusely. We tried to talk some cabbies into taking him to a local hospital but they refused. They actually seemed quite indifferent to his plight, and getting an ambulance in south america is not quite as easy as it is in the US. Not having a car ourselves, and not having any ability to help the man, we were forced to leave him, hoping that chance would favor him.
Flash forward a few years. I was living with my parents, locally while studying for a engineering associates. At this time of my life I was more or less a "third parent" for my younger brothers, as i did a lot of babysitting for my parents, as well as put money towards the bills every month. My dad, had been under the weather for the past several days, because his throat was swelling, limiting his breath. This had occurred fairly often in the past several years, so no-one was quite concerened about it, initially. That is until my dad walked down the stairs, more or less gagging on his own breath. His throat was starting to seal off, and there was the distinct possibility that he was going to die in our living room, in front of us. My mom quickly dialed 911 and took him to the door, luckily we lived immediatly next door to the fire hall in our local village. While she tended to him, she told me to keep my little brother's attention away from what was happenening, as they were too young to understand what was going on. I really don't remember much of what I did, other than the raw, physical fear running through me, and my vaguely making sure my younger brothers were no-where near when the ambulance got to our house. Fortunately, it did arrive and time, and one emergency tracheotomy at the hospital later, my dad was breathing again. He rapidly made a full recovery.
A more recent event of such nature, was at my third stay in the ogdensburg psych center, in 2013. Towards the end of the week i was there, there was a female patient who was obviously rubbing the wrong way with a male patient, who was being aggressive towards her. It was actually kinda super obvious. So of course, to my horror, that night at TV time, the ward put out one staff member to look over 8-10 patients, including guess who? those two. So when a fight broke out between the two, and their was only ONE staff member on hand, all hell broke loose. The male staff member got the guy, while one of the other female patients restrained the girl. I remember as the other patients scattered in panic, thinking "i have to stay out of this. I have to survive"
After the fight was ended, the floor was empty of staff for several minutes. I took the time to try to call a government safety line. Whoops! those are closed at that time of night. I was taken back into the beds before i could figure out how to dial the "emergency line"
After that the staff expected me to bed with the guy who had started the fight, and 2 other guys in a common bedroom. I elected to sleep on the stretcher near the nurses station, get a sleeping pill, rather be under a constant state of panic.
Overall, I've seen lots of terrifying things in public places. Some people snap, others are indifferent to suffering. Others ho-hum go about their job. On occasion, i've seen people panic, and in others, i've calmly, and collectedly done what needed to be done and be on my way. Really there is no logical predictor to what someone else will do in an emergency, as once adrenaline starts pumping all bets are off.
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