Psychomotor - of or relating to or characterizing mental events that have motor consequences or vice versa.
As an educator in public safety, one concept we have to be cognizant of is a student's psychomotor skills - or their ability and adaptability to learn to do things almost instinctively even when their mind is telling them differently. Firefighters must learn to turn off the survival instincts that tell most people to escape a burning building. The sensory inputs you and I normally enjoy (sight, hearing, smell, taste, touch) aren't availabe to a firefighter who's wearing thick gloves in a hot and smoky environment. Hazardous materials technicians are isolated from their environments by wearing bukly protective suits. Not only do they have to monitor danger levels in the external environment, their minds work double-time by monitoring their own internal environment...keenly aware of their own physical condition and limitations. EMT's and medics have to learn and practice their skills until they're as familiar as riding a bicycle or tying shoes. As instructors, we have to be sure they're overcoming what is a natural and instinctive survival response so they can do the job they're called to do. Big task!
This week I've been in a rope rescue technician course with some great firefighters from Greenwood and Greenville. My little group in the state health department seeks out as much technical training as we can, as we never know what types of emergencies we may become involved in. In addition to the specialized hazardous materials training for chemical, biological, and radiological materials, we take technical rescue training so we can support local authorities in a mass casualty incident (train accident, etc)
Standing 50 feet in the air on the edge of a perfectly good building with nothing but your toes and a half-inch rope holding you in place is NOT NORMAL. Using your feet as a pivot point and rotating out past the ledge is NOT NORMAL. Your brain is literally screaming out conflicting commands: "Pull yourself up!" or "Take a step down and try to catch the wall!" Your feet want to respond to the commands, as do your hands.
They "psycho" part of learning these new skills means that the intellectual part of my 3 pounds of neurons knows that the rope has a 9,000-pound rating, as does the secondary safety rope attached to my back. I know the heavy buckles that hold me to that rope are rated at 9,000 pounds of strength, and the harness I'm wearing is rated at 5,000 pounds.
But the "motor" part means I've got to learn to overcome the instincts with the new knowledge. NOT an easy thing to do! But repetition, and more repetition, and more slides down the rope mean that new skills are being learned. And its FUN to do too!
Why write about this? I have no clue, other than several of you who've seen the pictures have emailed or texted me with "NO WAY!" as the general theme of the comments. And there's a bit of a lesson too. I've had to put absolute trust in two things during training this week: my equipment, and my crew. You can't slide off a building on your own. It takes at least three for a safe slide: the man on the rope itself, another on the ground-end of your rope, and the man on your safety rope. The guy on the ground can make one simple move and completely stop you mid-air if you have a problem. If there's a catastrophic failure of your primary system, then the guy manning your safety line quite literally has your life in his hands. Remember, there's nothing below but air and concrete. No safety net.
Sometimes there's just no safety net, and you're depending on your surroundings and great people to hold you up. LET THEM! Your senses may be telling you differently, but sometimes you just have to take a deep breath and step off the "building" and let someone else watch out for you for a little while.
(note: new pics were posted from the class. I'll have a few more this weekend, so visit the online photo album)
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