Grand Cephalopod Savant

this guy was often one of the first people on the scene following a suspected arson, once emergency services had done what they needed to do. at times, there were also civilians on the periphery. often, they were freaking out, and understandably so; their home or workplace had just, quite literally, gone up in smoke

this investigator wouldn’t try to calm them down. he wouldn’t comfort them or be a shoulder to cry on.

instead, he’d walk up to the person most visibly losing their shit, hand them a fire extinguisher, and say “hey, can you keep an eye out for any other fires, and if you see one, can you put it out with this?”

of course, there was no actual risk of another fire. he wouldn’t be on the scene investigating if there was even a chance that the fire wasn’t completely put out. but the bystander didn’t need to know that

because that person, without fail, would immediately pull it together, take the fire extinguisher, and stand guard. they were, at least temporarily, calm enough for this investigator to do this job

but it was really a crazy feeling and my friend who works at a hospital told me that it is super common for bystanders to faint after an emergency is over and they stop having something to do.

And I also remember that the 911 operater asked me a bunch of questions, some of which I had to gather information from my student about (like his age), and then at some point the 911 operater transferred me to someone else and I got asked some of the same questions again and I felt so guilty that I hadn't thought to write them down and couldn't remember the answers from earlier.

And my same friend from the hospital was like "they definitely still had that information. they kept asking questions because keeping you on the line and giving you something to do makes you less likely to panic or pass out."

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