Tip #15: "I am an earthquake survivor!"

I’ll tell you, living on the East Coast and never having experienced an earthquake before, I really did not know what to expect. In fact, I did not even know at first that it WAS an earthquake. I thought maybe someone was onto my secret alias and bombed my building in an attempt to eliminate me.

But once the ground started shaking more profusely, I realized what was going on.  I immediately jumped up, grabbed my bag, tape, walkie talkie and the hardhat from my supervisors chair. Running through the ground level of the hospital, I did my civic duty of warning everyone to get out of the building. “Everyone get out! The building is collapsing!! We need to get out now! Now! Now!” As people started panicking and racing around grabbing their belongings, I made my way upstairs into the heart of the Emergency Department. I continued warning everyone of the imminent destruction of the hospital and began pushing patients out the doors to help the attending physicians evacuate the bedridden, poor, helpless souls. I was very noble and selfless in my endeavors to save everyone.

I ran up the 3 flights of stairs and over to the psych ward warning everyone I saw along the way. All the nurses were panicking and unsure about what to do or how to keep the crazy patients from jumping out the windows. Barbed wire, perhaps? I expressed to them my concern for these patients and turning back to look, I noticed they were running in zigzag patterns screaming about the end of the world and wearing strapped on helmets. Look at these crazies. I directed them to the stairs and started arguing that they needed to trust me and get as far away from the building as possible! “Get off of the campus and across the street!”

I continue up the stairs. The building swaying me back and forth on the staircase. The cemented walls starting to break behind the foam padding, I can hear it cracking and see the shifting as I make my way further up the building not thinking for a second about my own life or the fact that I may die here in this god forsaken hospital. I should have taken the job at St Francis. Further and further I climbed simultaneously warning everyone as the building showed its instability.

Finally. I reached the very top. and tried my best to get everyone out. Then, out of nowhere, the shaking desists. What? I intercommed the security office from my portable communication device…

“Eagle Eye to Base! Come in base! Whats going on? The quake seems to have dissipated.  Are we dead?”

“No, you asshole! It was just a minor tremor! Residuals from an earthquake in Virginia. You got to be kidding me! You made everyone panic! There are psychiatric patients being sent to the ER from getting hit by cars cause YOU told them to run across the street!!! What is wrong with you!?”

Oops.

Later that day, I was greeted by the Chief Security Officer of the hospital who was, well, less than pleased with my efforts. He put me on probation for 6 months and mandated that I do “hospital service” for the full term to help out and repair the mental damage I apparently did to the psych patients.

I actually became very good friends with a few of them. Turns out we have a lot in common. Go Figure.