22 MARCH 2021 WorldWide Drilling Resource® The Un-Comfort Zone II by Robert Evans Wilson, Jr. Situational Awareness for Safety, Creativity, and Truth Karen and I were heading home after watching a late evening movie at a nearby shopping mall. It was mostly deserted as we waited for the elevator to take us to the underground parking lot. A man wearing a blazer and dress slacks walked up and stood well back from the elevator door. When the door opened, Karen and I got inside and pressed the button for our parking level. The well-dressed man hesitated, then finally entered the elevator as the door was starting to close, which caused it to open fully again. He did not press a button to select a floor; in fact he didn’t even look at the buttons to see if we pushed the one for his floor. His hesitation over getting on the elevator, and his not looking at the elevator control panel triggered my Spidey Sense, and I gave him a once-over. As I scanned him from head to toe, I noticed he was concealing something in his hand. I could see just enough to recognize a knife handle held upside down in his hand and about an inch of the steel blade as the rest was tucked up inside his jacket sleeve. I grabbed Karen’s elbow and leaped, pulling both of us out of the elevator just as the doors were starting to close again. Karen must have seen the look of concern in my eyes because she didn’t resist, and as soon as we were away from the elevator she whispered frantically, “What? What did you see?” “That guy had a knife!” I replied. She then suggested we tell Security, which we did, but by the time we found a guard, the man was long gone. That happened back in the late 1990s, and I didn’t know it at the time, but what I was doing was practicing situational awareness. Situational Awareness Has Three Stages - Mica Endsley, former chief scientist of the United States Air Force, and one of the most recognized experts in Situation Awareness (SA), defines it in three stages: Perception of your environment and its elements; Comprehension of the information you've perceived (in your current situation), in other words, analyzing and assessing the elements; and finally, Projection of how those elements may affect the immediate future and beyond. In brief, SA is paying attention to what is going on around you and your surroundings, while continuing about your normal activities. It’s about noticing dangers and opportunities. Terrifying Close-Call Could've Been Avoided - You may have seen the viral YouTube video of a hiker in Utah, who came across what he thought were a couple of bobcats on the trail in front of him, but they weren’t bobcats; they were mountain lion cubs, and their mother came out of the brush to defend them. He did a fast backward walk while filming the lion that pursued him about a quarter mile (see video: Mountain Lion Stalks Me For 6 Minutes!). His situational awareness may have improved if he’d known the difference between a bobcat and a cougar. Wilson cont’d on page 36.
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