The Care Instinct
I saw someone on Twitter talk about one of their biggest fears: what would they do if a client had a medical emergency during an appointment?
As a client, what would you do if I was having a medical emergency. Twenty minutes into our first date I pass out. I’m on the floor, alive and breathing, but unconscious. All of a sudden I have a seizure or an allergic reaction or a stroke. I have zero allergies or present health conditions. Your guess is as good as mine about what the hell is going on.
Maybe you have a wife and kids. Maybe you have a job that could be put at risk. Maybe you’re just terrified and confused and out of your depths.
I would also be terrified. I have a life outside of this. And I also have this. The reason why you’re spending time with me is my full-time work. Work that I enjoy! Work that I would like to keep doing!
What would you or I do? What should you or I do?
Every state in the US has some sort of 911 medical emergency amnesty law. Let’s imagine:
A man is getting high with his dealer. His dealer starts overdosing. He barely knows the guy who is dying in front of him. He wants to help! But he’s also been using. There’s a lot of very, very illegal drugs everywhere. Maybe other illegal stuff that had literally nothing to do with the guy who was there to buy one specific illegal thing. Maybe he’s already been to jail for possession. If he calls 911, the police show up alongside the paramedics and arrest him. Maybe that would be his third strike. What if he – terrified, not of sound mind – runs away? What if he calls 911…and then still runs away? What if he calls 911, stays with this stranger – risking his life, his future, any possibility to finally make things right and be there for his wife and kids. Just as he hears the ambulance’s wail, the dealer takes his final breath in his arms. He gets popped not just for possession, but maybe for something more serious. He ends up with a public defender who’s overworked and a judge who’s having a bad day. He did the right thing and every day for the rest of his cell-confined-life asks himself, “Why didn’t I do the wrong thing?”
911 medical amnesty. “Good Samaritan Laws.”
The purpose is to help people do the right thing. Call 911 and we won’t arrest you for the situation that might have been going on when you had to choose whether or not you should do the right thing.
“The Good Samaritan”
A stranger lay on the side of the road – bloody, beaten, immobile. Two men see the sight and cross to the other side of the road to avoid him. The first is a priest, the second is a kind of assistant-to-the-priest.
A Samaritan passes by and – without hesitation or reservation - cleans the man up, puts him on his horse, and sets him up at an inn to recover. He pays the tab, he even tells the inn keeper, “let him stay as long as he needs, please take care of him, and I’ll come back and pay the difference.” (I’m sure the Samaritan would have rather put a card on file rather than an IOY, but unfortunately credit cards wouldn’t be discovered for many years.)
Everyone hated Samaritans! Samaria was filled with pagan, idol-worshiping Gentiles! Had they met in another situation, the stranger on the side of the road would have hated the man who helped him!
Then why did he help?
“The Greeks had a word, xenia—guest friendship—a command to take care of traveling strangers, to open your door to whoever is out there, because anyone passing by, far from home, might be God. Ovid tells the story of two immortals who came to Earth in disguise to cleanse the sickened world. No one would let them in but one old couple, Baucis and Philemon. And their reward for opening their door to strangers was to live on after death as trees—an oak and a linden—huge and gracious and intertwined. What we care for, we will grow to resemble. And what we resemble will hold us, when we are us no longer.” - Richard Powers, The Overstory
I would help you. It’s the right thing to do. Not a “good” or “kind” or “nice” thing – the right thing. The only thing. It’s not a choice; it’s an instinct. It’s not that I should do the right thing, but that I must. It is not always easy or convenient or symbiotic, but few aspects of this world are. The Samaritan didn’t hesitate because you don’t consciously choose unconscious reflexes.
There is only one world. This is all we have. We are the only ones who can help one another. I want care to be my reflex. I help because I want to be a person who helps. I help and care for other people because I want this world to be filled with people who help and care.
I can’t promise that I’ll fix every situation or be around to care about every aspect of everyone’s life forever and ever no matter what. But if and when I can, I’ll keep my card on file.