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I am not sure how 1st responders can do that day after day...

sim wrote:I am not sure how 1st responders can do that day after day...

They become numb to it.

That's why many people get the impression that they don't give a shit.

I'm not sure that "numb" is completely correct, perhaps "focused" is a better description. I've been doing it for 30+ years and have seen many things that have bothered me greatly, but they have not prevented me from completing the task at hand - others have not been so fortunate and have left the emergency services after a single bad call or series of calls. I often wonder when, or if, the cumulative stress of dealing with others on the worst days of their lives will catch up with me and demand that I do something else. There are times when we will handle an horrific MVA and I have no difficulty returning to sleep and the next hour (night, week or month) we will have a call with the relative serousness of a hangnail that prevents any further rest. To do the job you must put certain immediate thoughts out of mind, but the trade-off is an inevitable long term build-up of tension, or burn out. The work isn't for everyone but so far it has been OK for me.

First rule on a boat for anyone is before you leave the dock the owners or captains job is to go over all emergency procedures as crap happens in nano seconds.

To bad it continues to take the deaths of good folks to wake people out of the daily fog they live in.

Bruce wrote:First rule on a boat for anyone is before you leave the dock the owners or captains job is to go over all emergency procedures as crap happens in nano seconds.

To bad it continues to take the deaths of good folks to wake people out of the daily fog they live in.

You really cannot argue that point.


But then who expects a 50' boat to go down like a rock...cement hull...nevermind.

But then who expects a 50' boat to go down like a rock?

While no one may expect it to happen, any competent "captain", (licensed or otherwise, owner/operator, whoever has command of the vessel), should be prepared for the un-expected... Boy Scouts do it. Be prepared, that is.