Once in a WFR recert, they gave us a good quote for those kind of situations:
"Don't just do something....stand there!" What they meant is that even in tight situations, it usually pays to take a second to get your wits about you.
I've also heard that in medical school they tell young newbe doctors to
"First take your own pulse!" Again, what they mean is to first calm down, then deal with the situation.
There are a few situations that might require instant action. In first aid that might be blood squirting from and artery, or someone who has stopped breathing. Certainly there are a few other cases where one needs to react instantly, like a weapon jam during a firefight. However, in 90% of survival situations, you will be better off taking a coulple of seconds to calm down, assess the situation, and think clearly.
I think this is a modern response to the 'fight or flight reflex' we humans have been dealing with for millions of years - frightening situations have triggered a flight response for most of that time, we tend to hang around only when we assess that we can or must fight our way out of the situation. That fight or flight mechanism tends to keep us alive and propogating the species to live and fight another day. Everything from med school to wilderness first aid to combat training is intended to condition the person to stay and address the situation rather than run away. It runs counter to what our brains were originally programmed for, for the most part.
The big takeaway from combat training is you stay to fight for your buddy next to you, and maybe also you're dead already so deal with it (fight). The takeaway from most medical training is someone has to stay and stop that arterial bleed, so you better take a breath and do it (fight). Running away from trauma won't help anybody, and while it won't get you killed flight will damage your career as a doctor / nurse / EMT. You can recover, but most often you'll seek another profession if you run away from arterial bleeds as a medical professional...
Everytime I've stopped to give emergency first aid I think about this, and a little niggling signal from my amygdalla seems to say, run, run away fast, but them my training takes over and you stay and deal with it. You won't die but someone might. But that little amydgalla still reacts to the frightening scenario the same every time, its just that we can voluntarily over ride it almost every time with training and preparedness. Stop and take a breath, or your pulse, or just stand there, or more formally assessing the scene for safety is the gap that you need between the flight impulse and for training to take over and the impulse to stay and fight. That I think makes us human somehow.
(mentally though the last time I performed CPR 2 years ago I had a vivid image in my head of Homer Simpson, saying "Stupid Brain" to himself. Initially part of me wanted nothing to do with this frightening scenario. Its weird what we use for the interrupts and gaps to get things done).
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