Real Kato Blog: A Little Knowledge

I have the potential to do some good... but maybe some harm too.

I drove by a car accident today. It looked pretty bad. An SUV had overturned. Several other cars were smashed up.

It was on the freeway. It must have happened just moments ahead of me, because as I approached, traffic was just starting to pile up. No emergency vehicles were on the scene. A ton of people were getting out of their cars and dashing over to help.

I debated, momentarily, whether I should also stop and help. I immediately thought, no, there are fifty people going to help already; I'd just get in the way. So I drove on.

But a few minutes later, I thought: what if I could have done something? I'm not a doctor, but I'd guess I know more about medicine, anatomy, and first aid than the average Joe. I'm not a policeman, but I could have done something with regards to traffic management around the crash site. I'm not an expert at a lot of things, but I'm a reasonably knowledgeable layman. Does that make me helpful, or dangerous?

Probably, a little of both. So it's just a matter of whether I have enough arrogance (er, confidence?) to jump into a situation like that, knowing that even if I'm not the expert, I'm willing to take responsibility for the situation. With me, usually it's the cautious side of my personality that wins out, especially when lots of other people are around. (Interesting social psychological phenomenon at work there.) I think I've been too cautious for much of my life. I'm trying to change that.

It would certainly be easier if I actually WERE a doctor, and I knew I was the one in the position to be singularly helpful in that situation. In my current profession, I dunno... when a guy's car overturns, it's not like he'll desperately need help restoring network access to his computer. But if so, I guess I'd be The Guy.

Or maybe, I'll be around as some guy slips in and out of consciousness, and he groggily whispers to me, "I... need you to blog this for me."

Permalink 2 Comment

Posted by Ken in: life

Comments

Comment #1 from Crouching Hamster (Guest)
2005 Sep 21 - 12:02 pm : #

Ha! Dying Declaration!

Comment #2 from Timothy Ross (Guest)
2005 Sep 21 - 8:14 pm : #

It seems like I recall reading somewhere that the more people there are around the LESS likely you are to receive help.

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