Wicked Irony

A decade ago (give or take a few years), I was pulling my tour at the firehouse when the phone rang. The conversation went something like this:

"Fire Station Fourteen, Lieutenant Gilstrap speaking."

"I think my husband's having a heart attack."

"Ma'am you need to hang up right away and dial 911."

"But he can't breathe."

"Fine. Let me have your address, and I'll call 911 for you."

"We don't want any sirens, though. No fuss."
"Ma'am, we can’t do that."

"Oh. Never mind, then."

And she hung up. The good news is, she apparently came to her senses and did call 911 because a few minutes later a different station was dispatched to a heart attack call.

I've written before that people are rarely completely lucid in times of emergency, but the rationale going through this woman's mind was especially perplexing: I'd sort of like my husband to live, but not as much as I want to keep the neighbors from knowing we have a problem.

It goes to illustrate what I teach in classes as Gilstrap's Third Law of Human Behavior: The average person would rather be dead than embarrassed. It's the entire foundation upon which the double-dog dare is constructed.

In addition to being a proponent of my own Third Law (which I almost certainly stole from someone else), I firmly believe that God has a great sense of humor and a wicked sense of irony—something I pointed out to a colleague at the ISRI Safety & Environmental Council meeting a few weeks ago when he told me that he never wears a helmet when he rides his motorcycle off-road.

I told him, "You're a safety manager for heaven's sake. If you get gorked in an accident without your brain bucket, no one will even feel sorry for you." I told him if he didn't wear it for his health, he should at least wear it for his dignity.

In the end, I learned yet again that you can't change the mind of someone who's actively rationalized doing the wrong thing. In this case, the colleague is "committed" to doing his job at the yard, even as he takes ridiculous risks on his own time. To me, you're either in this safety game to win or you’re not, but I don't get a vote.

When in doubt, at least watch what the professionals do and emulate them. That's how I started wearing a helmet when I ski—that and a few well-publicized reports of celebrity brain injuries while skiing. The pros all wear helmets. I have ski pals who still refuse to wear helmets, but unlike me, they don't stake their professional reputations when they get hurt.

But maybe we all should. It's not politic to make fun of people in the throes of agony, but maybe those kids with cameras on YouTube have the right idea. Maybe we should start calling a nitwit a nitwit.

"Must have really hurt to lose that arm, Charlie, but what the hell did you think would happen?"

Come to think of it, maybe we're stacking the odds against ourselves merely with our terminology. The word "accident" for example: It implies some level of absolution for the idiot who sticks his hand in to a machine while it's running. A little hard-hearted jeering from his peers might just be the sort of thing to intimidate others into being less stupid.

I've long believed that newly minted teenage drivers should be required to spend a shift or two in the emergency room watching the flow of fractured people being processed. My intent wouldn't be to gross them out—although there would certainly be some of that—but rather for them to witness the total absence of dignity. The latest and greatest in designer labels all look like the same rags after they're cut off, and I don’t care how hot you looked at the party; puke-matted hair just looks silly.

Then there are the tubes. You've got your chest tube, your nasogastric tube, your endotracheal tube, and then the granddaddy of them all for most first-time witnesses: the Foley catheter. Go to Wikipedia if you need a definition, but suffice to say that I saw a nonresponsive victim of a gunshot wound sit up and yell when that puppy went in.

The banter among professionals in an emergency room setting is interesting to listen to, as well. It’s an environment in which stupidity is seen for what it is.

I think that the average 16-year-old would do anything to prevent the possibility of other 16-year-olds seeing him (or her) being evaluated and treated. Anything would be better than that level of embarrassment.

Maybe they'd even drive more carefully.

Before any of your run to your computers to fire off a response to this column, let me assure you that I offer my program of mass humiliation only in jest. Well, mostly. Fact is, there are all kinds of privacy rules and regulations that keep my plan from being workable.

But when I'm elected king . . . .

John Gilstrap is ISRI's Director of Safety.