Scared of the Sight of Blood
Why are we so scared at the sight of blood? It’s not like anybody has ever said, “I helped this guy with a broken arm, now I caught their germs and I have a broken arm!” Zombies do not exist, so it’s not like you’re going to get bitten helping someone and now you only have ten minutes to live before you become a zombie. People literally pass out at the sight of blood. That means your brain says just looking at blood is so terrifying, I’m going to knock you out so you won’t have to see it anymore. Somehow your body thinks going completely limp and hitting the ground face first and breaking your nose from the fall is a better option than dealing with just looking at blood. Oh, you’re bleeding and need my help? Nope, lights out! Someone needs to explain to me why we do that! It can’t be extreme empathy, because that would drive us to help more and not just get sick to our stomachs or pass out. It’s not a fight or flight response, because we’re not going to fight someone who needs help and take a swing at them, that would just be super uncalled for. For the flight response, we’re not going to physically run the other way either….that would be super embarrassing. Why do we have to talk ourselves into helping at the scene of an accident for fear of what we’ll see? These people need our help and we subconsciously think oh dear, what if they’re actually hurt? I can’t even look at that! Does that make sense? We don’t actually say out loud to the people in the car accident, “Your appearance is so hideous I can’t even look at you enough to help you right now, so I’ll just call 911 and flag someone else down to help you out. Just stay calm!” You can’t say it’s because you don’t have training, because you know deep down any help at this point is better than nothing. Then there’s those of us who look away when we have our own blood drawn. I don’t know why we don’t just watch what they’re doing to make sure things are going smoothly. Nope, it’s more important to look away and pretend you’re on the beach or anywhere but where you are….which is getting a simple procedure done that you can’t bare to watch. Thank heavens for those who feel an adrenaline rush for these cases and find the medical field fascinating. Take it from the wimpy, weak stomach majority of humanity, thank you so much for all that you do in emergency situations!! Because we literally can’t do it.