"Complex systems fail in complex ways".

You'll find that in the history of accidents, you'll usually find on the "monday morning quarterbacking" that there were numerous times to stop the flow of events. I think for aircraft accidents, it's about 7 things. For people, it could be just 2 or 3.

Bad things happen when making decisions under pressure (just some of the bigger examples):
- Challenger - "Go Fever"
- Columbia - Management quashing low-level engineers using friends in other agencies to get hi-res photos that may have helped.

The problem you have is:
- How do you know when your total judgement has become impaired?
- When do you "call it"?

As for you, I'm glad you're alive! Good re-inforcement for all of us, and I don't see anything I would have done differently.

As for the first responders, management of all types likes "metrics", so you were a ripe opportunity to gather them. Doesn't matter if 16 agencies treat you as a patient, they all get a patient contact credit. Plus, probably some interest in seeing if it is someone they know so they can rib them!