How do you respond in an emergency, or in a crisis situation? If you had asked me that question a few weeks ago, I may have said something like, "Stand back and watch someone else take care of the situation." And, normally that's the case. I will wait for someone else to step up and take charge. But, what if no one takes charge? What if no one else is around but me? Aha! That is rather interesting, as I learned last night.
Yesterday evening I got into a very minor accident in the parking lot of a shopping center. The other driver was a guy a few years younger than I. He had never been in an accident before, so he didn't really know what the protocol was. I have had some experience in this area (no comments please), so I kind of knew what I was doing. He wasn't really taking charge of the situation, so I had to. I became very task-oriented. It was if my emotions were completely turned off. All I could concentrate on was calling the police to report it, and exchanging the proper information. I wasn't angry, I wasn't hysterical, I wasn't crying. I was just focused on solving the problem and getting on with my evening. Now, I am also a slow-paced individual. So, I think things through in order to do it the best way, the right way. I could have just dialed 911 to report the accident, but since no one was injured and it obviously wasn't an emergency I couldn't bring myself to do that. I went into one of the stores, asked for a phone book, and looked up the number for the Douglas County police department. I am also an introvert, so as I was thinking everything through, I wasn't really talking much. Perhaps this guy would have found it useful if I had been in a teaching mode, explaining everything as I was doing it, since he hadn't been in the situation before. Oh well. That wasn't the case. I wasn't as concerned with him as I was with the task of reporting the accident and exchanging information.
As I was thinking about all of this today, it reminded me of a similar incident in China. One of the team members, Megan, had a severe asthma attack one evening. She had brought a nebulizer, but unfortunately we lost it at the Chengdu airport, so she was without it for the entire trip. We were all hanging out together, then Megan started coughing, so she went back to her room (I think to get an inhaler). A few minutes later, Steve asked me to go check on her. When I got into the room, she was coughing and using her inhaler...so I went into crisis mode. Focus on the task: Megan is having an asthma attack in China, and she doesn't have her nebulizer. We have a problem! Before we left the states, she had explained about her condition and walked us through the steps of using the nebulizer in the case that she was too weak to take care of it herself. So, with that small amount of background knowledge, my brain went to work. My first thought was to boil water, then put the medicine (that would have gone into the nebulizer) in the water to create a steam effect. Unfortunately, all of the medicine for the nebulizer was with the nebulizer when it got lost. But, the idea of steam was a pretty good one. So, I boiled water in the electric hot pot from the hotel, poured it over clean washcloths, and gave them to Megan to hold over her nose and mouth. Paired with the medicine from the inhaler, it kind of had a similar effect. I felt bad, though, because I wasn't able to comfort her. My emotions were turned off. I couldn't sit there with her and stroke her back and speak soothingly to her to calm her down. After I had been with her for 15 minutes, or perhaps longer, Sherrie came in and she took the role of comforter. But, I felt inadequate. It seemed to me that her presence did more to help Megan breathe better than anything I did. Later, Megan asked me if I had been scared during that time. Honestly, I hadn't. I didn't feel anything, scared, worried, hysterical. I just did. For a long time, I felt bad about that. I should have done the washcloth thing and helped to comfort her. Why couldn't I?
Today, in light of my more recent experience, I am able to look at my "crisis mode" as just being the way God wired me. I think Megan needed someone who wouldn't feel, but would think and do. God sent another person to be the compassionate one. I don't have to be everything to everybody. I just have to be me.
Hey, I just remembered something. When I first got to the room, I prayed over Megan. I forgot about that. Thank you, Lord, for reminding me.
