Who’s in Charge?
You are.
As the saying goes, you’ve got the job until you get hit or somebody better comes along.
An interesting phenomenon occurs in many emergency situations. Most people stand with wide eyes and do nothing. They are waiting for someone to tell them what to do. I think that the syndrome has increased and deepened over the years, but that’s just my opinion. That it is currently very deep and very prevalent is not my opinion. Airlines are now training their onboard personnel to literally scream and shout at people in order to get them to start moving out of an airplane that has crashed and started to catch on fire. People have to be told to leave a burning airplane, and shocked into motion in order to get them out.
Unbelievable? Absolutely. True? Absolutely.
You can read about the same phenomenon where buildings have been on fire, and people have stayed where they are, helpless as babes, until told by an authority figure to leave the danger. That happened on 9/11. In one case, the ‘authority figure’ who got people moving in time was just someone in the office who had figured out there might be an emergency situation in his high-rise building some day. He had made a very simple plan. Get out of the office, calmly move down the fireproof stairwell, don’t take the elevator that might open on floor with a fire. That was about it. But he saved himself and quite a few other people on that fateful day.
So take charge… unless there is someone in the immediate vicinity who is better qualified to do so. Since you are reading the information on this site, and perhaps other similar websites as well, you have some knowledge. Doubtless you could use more knowledge and training and experience… but we all could. No one knows all the answers, even after decades of dealing with emergencies. Some people just get a little better at it. And believe me, some do not.
Take charge and do what you think is best to do. A rule of thumb is to follow your instincts and do not second guess yourself. You may make mistakes… no, that’s wrong… you will make mistakes. It is also possible that you may find yourself in a situation where there is no good solution. Just a choice between poor solutions, with no guarantee of success. But the fact that you are acting toward survival counts very much. It may be enough. You’ll never know until you try.
February 23rd, 2009 at 2:45 pm
Funny, it doesn’t even take an emergency to see what you’ve described here.