Reflection, digestion, and ingestion

OK, I now have gotten a chance to think a bit more on the whole incident with my coworker in Chicago. I got some very nice feedback from my friends on handling the situation--my buddy psycho security guard, who has been through First Responder training, put it pretty well. He said that the teachers say, "You'll probably leave the class knowing 90% of what we taught here. If you can actually put 70% of that to use while you're in the field, under pressure, you're probably doing ok." I guess my problem is that I know what soldiers, firefighters, and police officers say all the time: in crisis situations, the training takes over, and it becomes almost instinctual. In my case, in a crisis, training takes ove.... um.... y'know, all I've ever taken was a CPR class. Everything else I know is random reading and talking to friends who know more about this.

So one priority out of the event: take some kind of first aid or first responder class. Also, having emergency contact information with people you're travelling with is a definitely a good idea. Perhaps they might think it's morbid, but I was the guy who watched the scene in Black Hawk Down where the Delta soldiers were taping blood type info to their boots, and thought, "Man, that's a good idea."

I guess one thing that really sent my 'scare-o-meter' spinning was when I jumped down to check out my coworker, turned him over, and saw the look on his face. He is a great guy, really smart, and good to work with. His face was contorted into a look that crossed somebody in the agony of drowning with your worst 7th grade impressions of 'a retard.' It was at that point that I realized something was really, really wrong (as opposed to really wrong). The other thing that threw me was how quickly the blood was spreading around his head--I now know that scalp wounds bleed like a mother, and direct pressure probably would have done a job on it (if I had something to apply direct pressure with). With the speed of the bleeding, my first reaction was, "Oh my god, has his head cracked open or exploded?"

Anyway, I spent my last evening in the Chicago area at a hotel near Midway Airport. I don't know how familiar most of you are with Midway Airport, but it is right in the middle of a pretty marginal neighborhood of, well, people who couldn't afford to move somewhere not on the jet approach path--the planes are right over the rooftops. If you would permit me a moment of urban planning geekery, the area has really wide roads with fast cars zipping by, resulting in the sidewalks principally being used by the indigent and mentally ill. Not a pleasant place to be.

A few blocks south of the airport on Cicero is Midway Hotel Center: an 'oasis' of hotels and chain restaurants for visiting suburbanites, surrounded by a moat of parking lots to make them feel at home. You can really see just how different it is compared with the local area in this Google hybrid view of the area.

Instead of having dinner at the fine mass market options of on-site dining at TGI Friday's, Dempsey's Irish-American Grill, the Great American Grill and the Courtyard Café, I decided to venture out. Across the street is the Jalapeno Rock Mexican restaurant--a total no-atmosphere, hole-in-the wall place that serves pretty good, cheap Mexican food. Nowhere near as good as Anna's, but a pretty good dinner for under $10. As a plus, there were great big windows on the front, so that if the place was getting held up, a passing police cruiser might see us all holding our hands up. [smile] No food poisoning resulted--all fine. Anyway, remember that your gastrointestinal tract is outside of your body, topologically speaking.



However, I did succumb to the forces of mass marketing: it was clearly time for a beer or two, and the TGIF was within staggering distance of the hotel. It was an acceptable end to the trip: writing postcards, a beer, and a Long Island Iced Tea the size of two fists.



Don't worry: I caught my morning flight without a problem.