Natural Responses

[MakAttak]

The thread in general has me thinking-

How many of us know how we will react in an emergency/life and death situation?

Which of course leads to the question- how do you prepare? (There are a lot of threads here on that)

My question is, how many of us truly know how we react in a true crisis?

I know many of my friends do flip out and panic.

I also know I become more focused in a crisis.

One example:

My dad (he was SIXTY when he did this) was impatient waiting for a tree crew to remove a limb. He decided to do this himself (I did not attempt to dissuade him- I've known him long enough that I did not waste my time).

Now before people talk about how he should not have been up there, even at 65 now, my dad could probably work most of us into the ground and he has been cutting down trees most of his life.

Back to the story, as he cut off the limb it smacked him in the head, knocking him unconscious and he fell two stories to the ground (breaking his back and puncturing his lung, but no paralysis). I took one second to realize what happened, grabbed my phone and ran to where my dad had fallen. I check his pulse immediately and begin dialing 911. I am totally calm in relaying information to the dispatcher and in preventing my dad from trying to get up as he began to attempt once he regained consciousness.

I have no fear as to how I will react in crisis situations. I do know that training will prepare me and help my focus (I was a boy scout and a life gaurd so I knew already what needed to be done in this situation)

I'm sure the LEO's here have been tested, who else knows how crises affect them?

 

[James T Thomas]

conditioned reflexes

The well known expression about you will do as you have trained for is correct.

Therefor, be sure of the training you engage in, whether it be Boy Scout, Lifegard, or Beginning Handgun.

 

[Rob Pincus]

I think he is talking about something a little more complex than the typical "you'll fight like you train" type cliche'.*

The fact is that most people will not know how they will react until they stress themselves ... its a great idea to try to do that in simulation training before finding out in a real situation.

*As for the whole "you'll fight like you train" concept, there is way to interpret that phrase that might make one think that they can out-train natural human reactions to fear/startle, etc.... while you can learn to manage them and work with them more efficiently, they are still going to exist at a fundamental level. The phrase SHOULD be interpreted to inspire people to "Train like you'll fight" and work with the body's/brain's natural reactions as part of your learned/planned responses.
Again, high level reality based training can help with that as well.

-RJP

 

[49north]

It is really quite sad how many folks become totally useless in an emergency. I have been a volunteer firefighter and first responder for many years and the non-productive and harmful actions of these idiots is quite amazing.
When something terrible occurs one must tend to the situation and do what one can. The hardest parts is when nothing can be done!

 

[Exmasonite]

My question is, how many of us truly know how we react in a true crisis?

Then what i think you are asking is: How many of us have truly been in a crisis?

Because no matter how hard you train/practice, you won't really know until the S actually H's TF.

 

[sacp81170a]

The age old tried and true method of training is stress inoculation. We have new officers put on the sleeve and have them stand there and take a dog attack from one of our LE canines. No amount of scenario playing or practice can prepare you for the shock of having someone (in this case, the dog) sincerely trying to rip you to shreds. It's a fairly safe way to do it, but it takes some guts to stand there and take it the first time.

After a few times, you get pretty stress inoculated.

 

[Rob Pincus]

That same type of training can be done for human ambushes with the right combination of gear & mindset. The ECQT courses we run, primarily for the military, are very similar except that they don't know the dog is coming or at least exactly when or where from...

 

[mekender]

ive got 3 kids, there is nothing a SHTF scenario could throw at me that is more stressful than hearing a loud thump on the other side of the house followed by one of the kids saying "ut oh!"

though hearing multiple loud thumps as one of them falls down the stairs comes close

 

[AndyC]

My little epiphany occurred at 3,000 ft when my parachute malfunctioned during a jump; I was very aware of the crisis (duh) but just focused on solving the problem, ignoring the caveman at the back of my brain shrieking at me.

Amazing the amount of confidence one gains after thinking through the incident afterward and going "Hmmm, if I had flipped out I would actually have died - but I didn't and I'm still here".

 

[sacp81170a]

My little epiphany occurred at 3,000 ft when my parachute malfunctioned during a jump;

Rock climbing gives you a lot of the same kinds of situations. I used to climb up at Vedauwoo between Cheyenne and Laramie quite a bit. You try not to get in those situations, but every once in a while you'll be out on a move that you're not sure you're gonna be able to make, you know it's gonna really hurt if you don't and you might die. That's when you've gotta think and let go at the same time.

That's probably why paratroopers and mountaineers have always been considered elite troops. After the stress inoculation of jumping out of a perfectly good airplane or hanging off a 300 foot drop (the Potato Chip, for those who know Vedauwoo) by your fingertips and toes, combat ain't nuthin' but a thang.

 

[sacp81170a]

Just sitting here thinking reminded me of another situation, the one where you head into danger knowing that you could get hurt. What made me think of that was an incident we had a couple months ago. We were having a staff meeting after hours at my PD. Just as it was breaking up, we got a shots fired call. Without hesitation, all the off duty officers and part timers piled into vehicles and headed out to back up the guys on duty. Turned out to be a poor old guy who was confused firing a .22 pistol out in his back yard.

Nevertheless, not a man there had a second's hesitation about going into what, for all we knew, was going to be a firefight. Why? Because it was our friends out there, and I for one was not going to let them face that situation without backup. I can definitely see where mekender is coming from. It's one thing to worry about yourself, another thing entirely to worry about someone else. I think most people would be surprised just how good they can be under stress if someone they care about is in danger. Funny how we're wired up that way, ain't it?

 

[mercop]

Great topic. First of all you can't use your response to any other threat as to gauge how you how you will respond to a human threat.

Something else you hear all the time that is bull**** is that it is always good to have more tools in the toolbox. Hicks Law has shown us that that is just not true. Take a kid for ice cream. What takes longer, choosing between vanilla or chocolate or 31 flavors?


You need to have conceptual skill sets that are adaptable to all environments. Defending against a someone throwing a roundhouse punch, swinging a stick slashing with a knife. You need to be counter attacking instead of looking for what is in the hand. Train against the blade and you will have less room for error.

People also assume that things that work in training will work under stress. One big one is the Wave feature on knives. We have evidenced that it can be incredibly hard to access a concealed fixed blade under stress much less a folder. Trying waving a folder with your back against the wall, drawing is prohibited by the fact that your elbow cannot travel to the rear.

 

[sacp81170a]

First of all you can't use your response to any other threat as to gauge how you how you will respond to a human threat.

Actually, IIRC, the consensus among performance psychologists is that you can. This isn't to say that you'll do the right thing in every situation, just that the tendency to freeze up and not be able to do anything under stress can be overcome by judicious stress inoculation.

One person I'm reminded of is a tough old cowboy named Earl Jordan that I used to know. Earl was as nice as anyone you'd ever want to meet, but you really wouldn't want to take him on if you knew him. After a lifetime of working around livestock that could mash him into the mud (think 1,500 and 2,000 lb. bulls) he was pretty much unimpressed by any supersekrit tacticool ninja stuff. I saw him one time when he was finally goaded into a fight by a big stupid kid who thought this wiry little guy with the calloused hands needed a whuppin'.

Earl calmly reached in and grabbed the guy by the ears the way you would a bull you wanted to put on the ground and drove him face first into the gravel. End of confrontation. Tough is tough, no matter how you come by it. Earl was tough.

 

[TallPine]

Just sitting here thinking reminded me of another situation, the one where you head into danger knowing that you could get hurt.

I did this for years when I was falling timber. Any tree could potentially kill me. I took down some multiple leaning tree combinations that co-workers refused to touch, even though it was in their cutting strip. Situations where if you didn't plan and execute the takedown and escape exactly right, you had a 100% chance of death or serious injury.

Now, as a volunteer wildland firefighter, I'm used to rushing towards danger. But there is always some degree of chaos, and you nearly always look back and say: "I should have done X differently".

I'm not saying that I wouldn't go all weak kneed over a violent situation. But probably not until after it was all over (assuming I survive).

 

[sacp81170a]

I'm not saying that I wouldn't go all weak kneed over a violent situation. But probably not until after it was all over (assuming I survive).

And more importantly, you wouldn't do the thing that gets more people killed than any other in bad situations, you wouldn't freeze up. Getting past that hurdle, you still have to have the proper training and experience to handle the situation correctly, but Murphy's law of combat is right. "Anything you do can get you killed, including nothing."

 

[Bob F.]

Good thread! Present occupation: triage nurse, i.e. sort 'em out at the front door, drag the stab wound to the trauma room, kid w/ 102 fever goes to waiting, etc.

Formerly: street medic, volunteer. Into the wreck w/ the patient, etc. Couple calls come to mind: trucker with traumatic amputation of arm, starting IV while rescue cut the guardrail I'm stradling. Chest pain call: mom's chest pain caused by drunk 18yr old just wrecked her PU and is running around house waving a knife, looking for brother, warning us to take care of his momma; no LEO backup avail. I had a damned good partner!

Somebody shooting at me; dunno??!!

I miss the adrenaline...........

Stay safe, join the fire dept!
Just kidding; when I was there, we had a damned good squad, I trusted them a great deal! Made a big difference.

Bob

 

[MakAttak]

I'm not gonna let this thread die yet.

Reading all the responses, I can also see now that my girlfriend is going to need some of that "stress innoculation."

Perhaps this could become a thread for suggestions on how to get these innoculations- I know one of the moderators talked about how he has a scenario in his CCW class where he charges at the students from 21 yards away and eviscerates (metaphorically) them.

Something like that might help prepare you some.

 

[ForeignDude]

Interesting Topic...

By coincidence, I have been thinking about this for a bit.

I think that the key here is to find the stimulus that induces the greatest, most incapacitating fear for you. While rock-climbing and parachuting engender dread in most people, the amount of fear those activities induce may not be sufficiently incapacitating to mimic the fear one is likely to experience during a self-defense situation, where one's life is in danger. What you must find is that fear that you dread most above all.

In my case, that stimulus is heights. At one point in my Army training, I had to rappel off an 80-foot tower. I can tell you that that was one of the hardest things I have had to do in my life. When I got up to the top, and was getting ready to go off that ledge, my mouth was dry as toast, my knees were knocking, my heart was about to jump out of my chest, my hands were shaking like mad, there was a loud rushing in my ears (so loud that I couldn't hear the instructor), and I could feel like my eyeballs were going to pop out of their sockets(!). Yet, I did what I had to do -- it wasn't pretty and wasn't graceful, but it got the job done.

For someone like me, the best strategy would be to leverage that fear in support of advancing self-defense training: (1) going bungee-jumping; (2) para-sailing; (3) parachuting; etc. For others, that "heart-stopping" fear might be exposure to snakes, or dogs, or darkness, or enclosed spaces (or open spaces, for that matter).

Find the thing you fear the most, and wallow in it. I believe this holds the key to mastering the physiological and psychological reactions likely to accompany a self-defense incident.

 

[Markbo]

I like to think that I am very good in emergencies and a quick look back over my lifetime, I have confirmation to that belief.

That belief has absolutely no bearing on what you will do in EVERY situtation. One Summer my wife cut the bejeebers out of her leg on an oyster shell laden dock. I mean 2.5" long and into the meat on the side of her calf.

I got her out, got her wrapped up and I got her dressed. It was hot Summer, but she was obviously in shock and was quite woozie. I got her in the car and to the hospital emergency room about 50 miles away very quickly. She lost quite a bit of blood and the wound was much more than a little inconvenient cut.

The ER Doc took one look at actually winced and made that sucking wind in sound 'whhhhhhhh'... then said... OH, that is nasty! I got right in his face and whispered in his ear "You had better not do that again and scare her any worse than she already is or me and you are gonna have a problem... now get to it!".

He jumped to work smiling and reassuring. Little did I know that standing there holding her hand and patting her face how I would react. When I looked over to see him suturing up her leg I was THIS close to passing out on top of her!

I have never had that happen in my life, but when I saw HER being worked on like that, I almost fell over... my sight started to darken and I felt the urge to wretch. I spun around and bolted out the door only to be met by a little nurse that was walking by. She instinctively grabbed me by my shirt by both hands under my chin, pushed me down into a chair, then shoved my head between my knees and barked "Sit still!". She came back in a moment with an ice bag on my neck, which sent the blood rushing back to me and the moment passed.

Whoda thunk it? Not me, brother... but there was no denying that it happened.

 

[Bubbles]

I took a week-long shooting class called "High Risk Personnel" at Storm Mountain Training Center in WV a few years ago where students were put though shoot/no-shoot scenarios and situations that showed us how we'd deal with stress. The stress levels were increased as the course progressed. IIRC other schools have similar classes.

The worst incident I had to deal with stress-wise was life-and-death, but didn't involve guns. My horse trailer, with one horse on board, popped off the truck's hitch on I-495 (Washington DC Beltway) one Saturday afternoon when I hit a pothole. I dealt with getting the rig safely onto the right shoulder, stopped upright, and kept everything in one piece, but couldn't move or even make my shaking hands let go of the steering wheel for about five minutes after everything was "over".

 

[mercop]

Realistic force on force training is needed for stress innoculation training is the only way to go. I have been scared of my son dying, my mom dying, car accidents etc. Not one of them was the same stress that I have had to confront in making arrests and use of force incidents where I knew I was going to have to fight and the BG and his friends would try to hurt me. It amuses when people say they will be able to do this or that under stress when I have seen veteran policemen not be able to hold a pen still enough to take a name after a decent fight. You can buy all the hardware you want but if you don't have the software to run it then your (deleted).

Women need to train against men attacking them. When you read about a woman being attacked attempt to recreate the scenario in your head or real life. You mind does not recognize the difference between training and real life, do when/then not if/then training.

If all else fails I teach my kids two things against bad guys, the first is to bite and the second is to jam their thumb in the POS's eye socket.

 

[sacp81170a]

Realistic force on force training is needed for stress innoculation training is the only way to go.

I would agree that force on force training is essential to making sure that what you do under the stress of a gunfight is going to be the right thing. It's not the only way to make sure that you'll do something, but it sure goes a lot farther to making sure that you'll survive than any other form of stress inoculation. The emphasis should be on professional training, preferably by folks who have BTDT. The recent episode in Colorado Springs is a great example. The lady who stopped the shooter was one of three armed guards who could have done so. Two of the guys apparently had drawn guns but did not shoot. I bet they're reevaluating even as we speak...

Stress inoculation is a good way of making sure you don't freeze. FoF training is a better way of making sure that what you do won't get you killed. In all actuality, you probably need both.

 

[1911 guy]

I was just going to mention that.

I've been beaten to the FOF punch.

Get the tools in your toolbox (basic fighting skills) and then get some FOF training. The psychological impact of intentionally doing severe and irreparable harm to another human needs to be overcome before the excrement impacts the portable oscillating cooling device, not during.

 

[Jeff White]

FOF training is not stress inoculation. FOF training is a necessary component of a training program, but there is little real stress involved (the kind where you get the "I'm actually going to be severely injured or worse if I screw this up). The stress you get from the embarrassment of finishing the exercise with paint on your clothes or hearing your MILES harness screech is not anywhere near the same as the stress you perform under while skydiving, scuba diving, rock climbing.

In fact people who participate in a lot of force on force training sometimes get a bit reckless in their desire to win. We used to call this MILES courage in the Army. Soldiers would take chances they probably wouldn't take in real life because they knew that they wouldn't really die and who knows, maybe they would get away with it and win. Well planned and run FOF training takes this into account and makes certain that people don't learn the wrong lesson from it.

Stress inoculation needs to have an element of real danger to it. The best types play on normal fears, (heights, drowning) and puts the student into a situation where he/she must work through their fear to solve a problem. The key is, the fear is real, the danger is real. FOF training does not provide this.

Jeff

 

[Markbo]

I actually find scuba diving very Zen... totally relaxing. Except for that time that Bullshark showed up off the Texas Coast on an offshore platform. That got my heart rate up!