By Jim Love
One of my other joys, in addition to EMS, is dogs. I have had the honor to work with the local Humane Society and to foster dogs with special needs. Many of these special needs dogs are timid and afraid to the extreme.
They have such a fear that they will not approach people and will cower in the very back of their cage. These are typically grown dogs with some history — some unknown past. Rather than cute, playful dogs eager to please, these dogs become for the most part undesired and unadoptable. Fostering these wonderful animals is about rehabbing them — making them less fearful and shy.
There are many steps to the rehab process. One step is to not foster or reward this unwanted behavior. Another powerful step is to create an environment where nothing bad happens. These fearful dogs interact with people, and with other dogs in a variety of environments and nothing bad happens. They go to the pet store — there are people and there are other dogs. Nothing bad happens.
We go to the dog park, there is sniffing and running — big dogs and little dogs, yippy dogs, wagging dogs and nothing bad happens. With each interaction, the shy dogs becomes a little less shy and a little more interactive and comfortable. To turn a shy dog around takes patience and time.
In EMS we also learn from times and events where nothing bad happens. We drive at a speed too fast for conditions for a child who drowned — nothing bad happens.
We go through a red light without stopping and nothing bad happens. We lift a patient from the ground with our knees locked using our back to perform the lift and nothing bad happens. We see and know of our peers doing and acting the same and nothing bad happens.
Just like in the rehab process, there is a reward. You get to the call a little quicker- shave off a few seconds. You give the patient a little better chance of survival. You get to drive and lift and work another day.
Then seemingly out of the blue there is a horrible intersection collision or a medic has surgery to repair a herniated disk. Why? What went wrong? For so long these acts have been performed and nothing bad happened.
The difference between what I am describing in canine rehab and EMS is that a positive interaction that helps a shy dog get better is a set up, a planned event. It is carefully designed to have a high probability of success. I go to places that are canine friendly where there are people of a similar mind. I go where there is little likelihood for dog aggression. That nothing bad happens is more about planning and experience than it is about luck.
That nothing bad happens is the desired outcome and lesson. The events I described in EMS, lifting wrong and driving in a risky fashion is more about luck than it is about planning or design. That nothing bad happens is the expected outcome based strictly on past outcomes. That something bad eventually does happen is really no surprise.
Consider the medicine we practice. We give a certain medication because it has been studied. Its actions and effects on the body are known. Giving medication is a set up — a set up to succeed. It’s not a series of random factors such as a red light intersection.
Running a red light without a complete stop is more similar to Russian Roulette. Using a revolver you can only get away with pulling the trigger five times at the most. We might get away with running a red light hundreds of times without something bad happening. This is such a deceptive lesson.
To practice and achieve proactive safety we must look at not only failed missions but at seemingly successful ones as well. We must look at those times when nothing bad happened and ask: was this luck or was it a planned, calculated event that produced the desired outcome? Just look at the daily headlines here on EMS1.com. You’ll know that from time-to-time bad things do happen and sometimes our luck runs out.
Real sustained safety is being smart, not simply lucky. Real safety is a set up, a planned event.