Feeling secure?

Imagine you and your family enjoying a Christmas market, shopping, eating Christmassy foods, enjoying music, glittering lights and fun...now imagine all that and then, out of nowhere, a car comes crashing through the crowd hitting people along the way. Also, imagine your young child killed by that vehicle. It'd be terrible wouldn't it? Now imagine that car being driven into the crowd intentionally.

That's exactly what happened recently in Magdeburg, Germany when a Saudi Arabian piece of shit decided to drive his vehicle into the people enjoying a Christmas market...people like you and I, leaving many injured and some killed.

A random act...but nope, intentional; just as intentional as an event in December 2016 when an Islamic extremist drove a truck into the crowd in a Christmas market in Berlin, Germany killing 13 and injuring many dozens more.

There's many cases of this type, you can google it for yourself, but here's one more I'd like to add; Bastille Day 2016, Nice, France when Mohamed Lahouaiej-Bouhlel, an Islamic jihadist drove his truck along the Promenade des Anglais (pictured above) and into crowds killing 86 people, the youngest of which was not yet three years old; a two kilometre killing spree. Yep, humans really are assholes.

Today, I had a coffee catch-up with a person I used to work with a long while back and it was an awesome catch-up although tinged with a sad and negative undertone due to the conversation.

Since we worked together we've both moved on to new roles and she's currently working for a Government agency I can't say much about and deals with situations of national security and we were chatting about some of the situations that have occurred around the place including the recent situation in Magdeburg, Germany as above.

I'll not say much about the discussion other than to say we both agreed that most people are monumentally unaware of how close to disaster they are...and how most choose to be oblivious to it or take the opinion that it can't happen to them. It can though, clearly.

Sometimes things are so out of our control that there's nothing we could do to avert the incident; say, being on a train that's been derailed and crashes in a fiery wreck - it's out of our control to influence. But there's many things each and everyone of us can do to work towards mitigating the risk we are all in at any given point. Most of those things won't prevent an incident happening but minimising the risk or impact upon ourselves seems like a smart course of action.

One of the easiest and most achievable things we can do is to have an awareness of what's going on around us. It's called situational awareness. It's about understanding where emergency exits are, avenues of escape, reading the sounds that occur around us, the tone of the crowd, looking for obvious threats and risks and other such things; it's about being aware.

It's nice to listen to music with earpods stuck in our ears...but that means you don't have situational awareness. Walking with one's face stuck in the phone on Facebook is another such case. People become so oblivious to what's around them that before they know it they're hit by a truck and on the ground with crushed bones and brain fluid leaking out of their head. Not a nice way to end a trip to the Christmas markets huh?

I'm not saying that situational awareness will save the day every time, but it'll give a person a greater chance of reducing the risk that exists all around us and just maybe the person that's avoided injury could assist someone who has?

It's no different inside of one's home where issues occur all the time. Fires, electrocution, cuts and falling off ladders are obvious ones; knowing the right way to do things, having evacuation plans, first aid kits, smoke detectors, fire extinguishers and such safety items could save a person's life...just the same way a plan to mitigate the chance of home invasions, (something that's becoming more popular as economic factors bite hard), or deal with them when they occur can as well.

There's so many situations in which humans could be harmed or killed but so many very simple ways a person can lessen the risk and yet so many people don't seem to bother.

It won't happen to me.

I think that's a popular thought, certainly popular with those who are incapable of, or unwilling to, take some affirmative action on their own accord to reduce everyday risks to themselves of families. The thing is though, it can and possibly will happen to you!

We each make a choice to act in our own benefit and for our own safety or not. Many prefer to let someone else worry about it but that's stupidity and laziness in my opinion, then there's others who take affirmative action, understand the risks and ways to mitigate or minimise them and those who understand how simple it is to do just that. It just takes a little responsibility.

I'm pretty sure those people in the incidents I mention above didn't think their lives would be in danger when they left their homes but it turns out that their lives were at great risk; lives were taken and others irrevocably changed. Parents lost children and children lost parents and siblings; not a nice thing. I'm not suggesting that any of them could have changed those situations but I'm pretty sure a little awareness could very well have saved some of those lives and casualties and made a difference.

Are you feeling secure? How's your situational awareness?

Are you actively in tune with your surroundings, do you think about risk mitigation when in public or within your home? I think those who hold those beliefs are less likely to ever be called victims and those who are not...well, more likely to be probable victims. Are you happy to be oblivious to the risks around you and willing to accept the consequences or do you think there's someone out there who will save the day? The Government or police? (That's laughable).

Feel free to comment if you'd like.