How to stay calm in emergency situations

Life Kit

NPR

Health & Fitness, Self-improvement, Kids & Family, Education, Business

4.3 • 3.9K Ratings

🗓️ 15 May 2025

⏱️ 29 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

There are some emergency scenarios we don't want to think about: medical accidents, mass shootings or suicidal crises. But when these situations happen, staying calm and having a response plan could be the difference between life and death. In this episode, a fire captain, emergency room doctor and mental health advocate share how they keep their cool in the most high-stakes emergencies. There are skills that everyone can learn.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	This is Irid Glass, the host of This American Life.
0:02.9	So much is changing so rapidly right now with President Trump in office.
0:07.3	It feels good to pause for a moment sometimes and look around at what's what.
0:10.7	Just try and do that.
0:11.4	We've been finding these incredible stories about right now that are funny and have feeling,
0:16.1	and you get to see people everywhere making sense of this new America that we find ourselves in. This American Life, wherever you get your podcast.
0:24.0	You're listening to Life Kit from NPR.
0:28.9	Hey, it's Mariel. Today we're going to talk about some of the most difficult things that can happen to a person, scenarios that nobody wants to end up in.
0:39.0	House fires, mass shootings, emergency medical procedures, mental health crises, and how to stay calm if these
0:45.3	ever happen to you? When somebody calls 911, they're usually having their worst day, probably the
0:50.4	worst day they've ever had.
1:01.5	Former fire captain, Ryan Field Spack, says it's natural and human to panic when faced with an emergency.
1:09.0	But with time and practice, he learned to find ease, calm, and even peace during these kinds of crisis moments,
1:11.1	even when things were going really badly.
1:14.9	And to help the people experiencing the crisis find that calm too.
1:18.9	And if you can harness that inside yourself, it's the best feeling in the world.
1:22.5	More than that, finding your composure can help you stay alive.
1:28.0	But you don't have to be a first responder or an emergency room physician like Dr. Italo Brown to learn to manage your fight, flight, or freeze stress response.
1:32.3	I think that it's something that can be taught.
1:34.8	I think that there are elements of it that can be constantly reinforced.
1:40.8	And sometimes, you know, people are faking it and they make it.
1:44.6	It's something that we sometimes have to lean on in order to get past that initial fear.
	...

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