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belated empathy
Sep. 26th, 2014 01:38 pm During all the ice bucket challenge craze, I kept being surprised by how shocking the ice water seemed to people. We live in a place with lots of winter weather, and many of us have had snow down the back of the neck or whatever. My favorite was Owen Morse (half of the juggling duo "The Passing Zone") who said "My goodness, that's cold." One of many attributes of their professional act is that they are for all audiences, so I guess mild language is part of a lifestyle.
On Tuesday, I participated in a Hazmat dril at MGH. I've volunteered for several of them, but this was the first time my character has been injured seriously enough to be on a backboard instead of ambulatory. In these scenarios, before any medical treatment can happen, the people affected by the hazardous material have to be cleared of it as much as possible. Clothes are stripped away (in an actual emergency, people would be naked, but under an outer layer which is removed, we are allowed to wear shorts and shirt or bathing suit with red tape applied, which is a pretend layer of skin). If you're ambulatory, you are given instructions to wash yourself, and you are supervised (sometimes more expertly than other times - in a previous drill, some people kept wearing their socks after the shower and the person didn't notice).Someone on a backboard is washed by people in hazmat suits, and flipped onto each side so that s/he is cleaned. I had my eyes closed, so I only know what it felt like. One of the things that is supposed to happen is that the water is warmed before patients are washed, but that step was missed during this drill - it wasn't very warm in the ambulance bay in which the shower stations were set up and the water was COLD. I had planned to stick to the script (My leg hurts, I'm feeling short of breath, where is my daughter?) but for a little while, what I actually said was Wow, that's really cold! I'm cold! (also Don't drop me, when I was flipped onto my side). The patient presumably would have said that kind of thing as well (I wasn't the only volunteer yelping, either), but I suddenly realized how hard it would have been for the folks in the ice bucket videos to be nonchalant.
On Tuesday, I participated in a Hazmat dril at MGH. I've volunteered for several of them, but this was the first time my character has been injured seriously enough to be on a backboard instead of ambulatory. In these scenarios, before any medical treatment can happen, the people affected by the hazardous material have to be cleared of it as much as possible. Clothes are stripped away (in an actual emergency, people would be naked, but under an outer layer which is removed, we are allowed to wear shorts and shirt or bathing suit with red tape applied, which is a pretend layer of skin). If you're ambulatory, you are given instructions to wash yourself, and you are supervised (sometimes more expertly than other times - in a previous drill, some people kept wearing their socks after the shower and the person didn't notice).Someone on a backboard is washed by people in hazmat suits, and flipped onto each side so that s/he is cleaned. I had my eyes closed, so I only know what it felt like. One of the things that is supposed to happen is that the water is warmed before patients are washed, but that step was missed during this drill - it wasn't very warm in the ambulance bay in which the shower stations were set up and the water was COLD. I had planned to stick to the script (My leg hurts, I'm feeling short of breath, where is my daughter?) but for a little while, what I actually said was Wow, that's really cold! I'm cold! (also Don't drop me, when I was flipped onto my side). The patient presumably would have said that kind of thing as well (I wasn't the only volunteer yelping, either), but I suddenly realized how hard it would have been for the folks in the ice bucket videos to be nonchalant.
