Late yesterday afternoon I dragged my poor little broken body out for a walk. “If you don’t use it, you lose it”, that’s my motto. I think it’s best to keep moving unless it’s impossible.
I was about three blocks away when I saw a few neighbor friends in their front yard so I stopped for a chat, mainly to bore them with photos of the grandkids.
Without warning, lights and sirens from no less than eight police cars, two fire engines, and paramedics drove right by us at a high rate of speed in our residential ‘hood. I checked PulsePoint and noted that they were going to a house just a few doors down from where we were.
A medical emergency isn’t unusual, but when it’s accompanied by heavy law enforcement–well, that’s a different story.
“Let’s go see”, I said, and we did.
It turned out that the medical emergency might have been related to an overdose, which sort of explains the police.
The person was on the ground and when my friend saw who it was, he became upset because it was one of his best friends. I instructed him to immediately call the spouse who wasn’t home at the time, had no idea, and was grateful for the call.
Allegedly, the person was impaired and fell, sustaining injuries, and someone else in the home called the paramedics.
My friend didn’t seem to know how to acquire info from the police or paramedics, so I did what I do–take charge of an emergency situation, communicate with all parties, liaise, and sort out the situation.
After the injured person was worked on by paramedics, was talking and breathing OK, stabilized for transport to the hospital and the spouse knew where to go, I continued on my walk.
I contemplated the many times I’ve been either personally involved in crises or as a bystander, and how I seem to exhibit a calm demeanor that encourages others to look to me for answers, to take charge, and to coordinate all aspects of the situation.
I KNEW I did those things but I had never before realized that is something I’m pretty good at. I don’t know where I learned them. It’s just something instinctual, I guess.
Whether it’s a fire or an accident or my son’s surgery, I don’t panic. I go to a place of calm, unemotional, rational, measured assessment while others tend to become stressed and unable to function.
My son once asked me how I survived his life threatening brief illness and major surgery because I seemed so calm. He asked me if I got upset or if I cried because he saw me as strong and capable during that horrible time and I told him this: during his surgery, I went into the bathroom in the waiting room and broke down and cried only one time. Then I looked in the mirror and told myself to STOP. What I never divulged to him was the mantra I kept repeating to myself, “If I cry, he dies. If I cry, he dies.” Truthfully, without the lifesaving emergency surgery, he would not be here now with those two adorable children. I felt as if I willed him to survive. And he did. After it was all over and he was on the mend, I was able to let go of my steely resolve a bit and helped to love him back to health. Every once in a while we talk about that dark time and how his wife and I never left his side, how we both spent every day and slept next to him every night at the hospital until he was released. SIGH.
I realize now with a little self awareness that I have been able to endure unspeakable pain by being stoic. It’s not that I don’t feel the emotion and the fear and the danger, but my mind seems to go to a different place and I compartmentalize (as my therapist would say) the feelings until later. Stuff needs to get done, someone needs to take charge and be a leader or there’s chaos.
If no one else steps up, you can count on me.
P.S. I made my first Anchor podcast — not my voice though because my microphone didn’t get recognized so I’m using Remy’s voice. Here’s the link, it’s kinda freaky. https://anchor.fm/enchanted-seashells/episodes/Situational-Calm-e16np97
Enchanted Seashells by Princess Rosebud 
Hopefully your neighbour’s friend is all well again now!
A calm person is always a good person to have around in a crisis.
I wouldn’t say I am exactly calm, I’m more a roller-coaster of emotions person at the best of times. But if there is no one else to take control I seem to pull it together and deal with it quite well, however if there’s another calm person there, and I’m emotionally attached to the person involved, then my emotions can get the better of me.
Once we were making apple juice and my four year old impulsively stuck her hand in the juicer – ‘to get out a stuck piece of apple’ . There was blood everywher! Absolutely everywhere. The other kids were screaming and I did all the right things, held the arm up, got one kid to call an ambulance, another to call dad at work. Held on to my little one firmly as she looked like she might faint. I sent my son to the neighbour as the kids were all so distressed, especially my oldest daughter who had been standing next to the juicer. (Funny story – we hadn’t been living in Germany that long so our German was still not so great, so my son appeared, white as a sheet at my neighbour’s, got the words muddled and accidentally said ‘my little sister has been slit open, can you please come?’ My poor neighbour had no idea what she would find!) Once my neighbour arrived though I lost all of my calm and I was really distressed. There was so much blood, I couldn’t tell how much of my child’s fingers were missing.
In the end it turned out to be not to bad at all. The paramedics told me fingers bleed lots when cut so it tends to look much, much worse than it actually is.
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Oh my goodness, I think you did amazingly well in that scenario with blood all around! I think our mom instincts kick in and we do what we need to do. Thank goodness your little one was OK! You were modeling great crisis behavior for your kids, that’s for sure. You just can’t predict when a child is going to do something like stick fingers in a juicer! Whew, so glad it turned out OK! I think my neighbor’s friend is OK, apparently this is not the first time it’s happened, substance abuse help is really needed.
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It was definitely a shocking event. Two of us were standing right next to her but she did it so instinctively, it was really quick so there was nothing we could do. Luckily she must have felt something right away and instinctively pulled them back out again, so actually there was not too much damage. And now she’s desperate to be either a brain, hand or heart surgeon, which is quite funny.
Actually, she’s had several operations on one hand as she was born with a dodgy mole and before we’d even left the hospital after her birth, they were saying it would need to be operated away.
So at two and three she was back and forth at the children’s surgeon.
At one point she’d just got her bandaging removed and my son accidentally squashed his fingers in an old, very heavy sun lounger (he’d thought he’d surprise me by putting it up in the garden for me). So we spent a couple of months going back and forth to the hand surgeon, getting his hand sorted.
My daughter was so jealous that his hand was in a cast and hers wasn’t! Kids are so funny.
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That’s a lot to to go through! Wow, I hope your children are doing ok now!!
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Thank you. They are well.
Saying that, one had to go to hospital today for x-rays as they ran over their foot with a heavy trolley at work, but nothing is broken. Phew!! It never stops does it?
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Thank goodness nothing was broken!
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I hear you about being calm in a crisis. I do it too. And then let it out later.
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