by Hal Newman<\/p>\n
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When confronted with unfamiliar territory and a \tsurvival situation, many people follow a line of cascading decisions that \tlead to the unthinkable – they run away from rescue.<\/p>\n
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I understand how the average Jack\/Jill can end up \trejecting the omnipresent dangers inherent in a survival situation and do \teverything in their power to hold on to the familiar instead of embracing \ttheir new environment. I understand how those decisions can lead to someone \tsticking to what they believe is the trail and walking over the edge of a \tcliff.<\/p>\n
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What I don’t understand is how a supposedly seasoned \temergency manager can make the same type of conscious decisions on behalf of \this\/her constituents and do everything in their power to prevent new ideas \tfrom circulating in their fiefdoms in the midst of a disaster. By refusing \tto embrace the new environment, they are, in effect, leading the move to run \taway from rescue.<\/p>\n
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Yesterday, I found myself having to explain that \tsomeone reaching out for assistance in the midst of a disaster probably \twasn’t looking for a political leg-up. It was a surreal conversation due in \tpart to the fact that the folks doing the reaching out were just trying to \thelp the citizens who rely on them for help in a crisis. You might have \tguessed that wasn’t the surreal part.<\/p>\n
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You’re right. The surreal part was trying to convince \ta senior emergency management advisor that maybe it was just help these people were seeking and not a threat to the political status quo.<\/p>\n
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I went with the following line:<\/p>\n
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“So, what would be the ulterior motive of someone \tcalling from a church in the midst of a disaster zone to my office in \tMontreal asking for help getting extra supplies to his congregants. All the \twhile, he knows he’s reaching out to someone in a different country – except \the doesn’t see it that way – he just knows maybe there’s a chance he can get \tfind some hope from another network of caring people. Maybe he’s worked out \tthat going outside the normal system will mean getting lifesaving help \tquicker. What’s the political motive there?”<\/p>\n
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There was a long pause at the other end of the line. I \tthought maybe I’d made the point.<\/p>\n
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Not so lucky.<\/p>\n
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Clearly calling from the bottom of a \thermetically-sealed box, the voice on the phone said, “Maybe he’s just \ttrying to embarrass us politically by taking his request to another \tcountry.”<\/p>\n
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Or maybe he’s just trying to find a source for crates \tof Ensure to feed the elderly residents who decided to weather the storm in \ttheir home, or maybe he’s trying to arrange for a couple of hundred of extra \tblankets to be sent his way because the power might not get fixed for two \tmore cold weeks, or maybe it’s the family with a special needs child who \tneed extra medical supplies…<\/p>\n
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Maybe he has embraced his new environment and \tdetermined he needs to take bold decisive action to survive. Perhaps he has \tdecided to run towards the rescuers.<\/p>\n
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___<\/p>\n
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Newsflash: Your constituents will, no doubt, take \tnotice when you make a big deal of attempting to halt the flow of help, new \tideas, the exchange of lessons learned, or the swapping of stories. It has \tbeen my experience that there is no more powerful endorsement of someone \toffering to help than trying to prevent them from doing so.<\/p>\n
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Be well. Practice big medicine.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
by Hal Newman When confronted with unfamiliar territory and a survival situation, many people follow a line of cascading decisions that lead to the unthinkable – they run away from rescue. I understand how the average Jack\/Jill can end up rejecting the omnipresent dangers inherent in a survival situation and do everything in their power […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5],"tags":[47,16,48],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/bigmedicine.ca\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/bigmedicine.ca\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/bigmedicine.ca\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bigmedicine.ca\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bigmedicine.ca\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=72"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/bigmedicine.ca\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":158,"href":"http:\/\/bigmedicine.ca\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72\/revisions\/158"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/bigmedicine.ca\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=72"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bigmedicine.ca\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=72"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bigmedicine.ca\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=72"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}