Bolster
Flashlight Enthusiast
Don't know how many of you are interested in headlamps & flashlights for emergency / rescue / disaster type work, but I learned something the other day. Herewith my story:
I was part of a CERT exercise last week (community volunteers who do search & rescue, triage, emergency communications, etc). We were supposed to bring our OWN gear. This is drilled into us. I was elected the leader on a S&R team of 5 people, and we were sent two floors down into a darkened parking garage to "rescue" various mannequins. As we started to walk into the darkness, I switched on my headlamp (H501 on helmet). Two of our team complained they had brought no lights (their fault) so we walked close together and shared the 3 lights we had. The other two were those cheap 2D incans.
When we were well into the darkness, we had to look into the distance to spot our 'victims.' My H501w was not up to that task, and neither were the two 2D incans that others had brought. I was frustrated, and then suddenly remembered I'd tossed in a Fenix 1AA handheld, so I fished it out of my pack. That threw into the darkness well, but I had used it for about one second before:
"Haaaaaaaayyyyy, he has TWO flashlights!" came the piercing shriek over my shoulder. Sounded like Rosanne Barr. And the next was a demand by another: "You have two! You have to give her one of yours!"
I did. I was frustrated because she used it to comfort herself in the dark rather than search into the distance to spot victims, and I was back to just my short-range headlamp. The light stealer was one of the least productive people on the team (she just stood around making sarcastic commentary on the exercise), so it was the loss of the best light we had for the effort, but I learned something.
If you are in any sort of situation where flashlights (or anything else) are a valuable resource, and you have PLANNED and others HAVE NOT, you will immediately be set upon by the unprepared and "guilted" into giving up any spares. And since that 1AA Fenix was the best thrower of the lot, people on my team felt I was obligated to hand it over to the person who was complaining the loudest about not wanting to go into the dark. Maybe that made some sort of emotional sense to two of my team members, but it made no objective sense toward achieving our goal.
I managed to retrieve it at the end of the exercise, no worse for the wear, but I learned a valuable lesson about (1) being prepared and how that means you now "owe" the unprepared something; and (2) having two of anything in a situation like that is great personally, but bad mojo socially unless you are prepared to hand it over.
I was part of a CERT exercise last week (community volunteers who do search & rescue, triage, emergency communications, etc). We were supposed to bring our OWN gear. This is drilled into us. I was elected the leader on a S&R team of 5 people, and we were sent two floors down into a darkened parking garage to "rescue" various mannequins. As we started to walk into the darkness, I switched on my headlamp (H501 on helmet). Two of our team complained they had brought no lights (their fault) so we walked close together and shared the 3 lights we had. The other two were those cheap 2D incans.
When we were well into the darkness, we had to look into the distance to spot our 'victims.' My H501w was not up to that task, and neither were the two 2D incans that others had brought. I was frustrated, and then suddenly remembered I'd tossed in a Fenix 1AA handheld, so I fished it out of my pack. That threw into the darkness well, but I had used it for about one second before:
"Haaaaaaaayyyyy, he has TWO flashlights!" came the piercing shriek over my shoulder. Sounded like Rosanne Barr. And the next was a demand by another: "You have two! You have to give her one of yours!"
I did. I was frustrated because she used it to comfort herself in the dark rather than search into the distance to spot victims, and I was back to just my short-range headlamp. The light stealer was one of the least productive people on the team (she just stood around making sarcastic commentary on the exercise), so it was the loss of the best light we had for the effort, but I learned something.
If you are in any sort of situation where flashlights (or anything else) are a valuable resource, and you have PLANNED and others HAVE NOT, you will immediately be set upon by the unprepared and "guilted" into giving up any spares. And since that 1AA Fenix was the best thrower of the lot, people on my team felt I was obligated to hand it over to the person who was complaining the loudest about not wanting to go into the dark. Maybe that made some sort of emotional sense to two of my team members, but it made no objective sense toward achieving our goal.
I managed to retrieve it at the end of the exercise, no worse for the wear, but I learned a valuable lesson about (1) being prepared and how that means you now "owe" the unprepared something; and (2) having two of anything in a situation like that is great personally, but bad mojo socially unless you are prepared to hand it over.
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