My Ambulance Ride and Why You Need Emergency #s for Everyone on Your Staff!
Three Thursdays ago, I was in between Zoom calls when this excruciating and intense pain went down my back and into my legs. I’d been having some back pain for the past few weeks, but it was old-lady level manageable… nothing like I was experiencing during this moment.
I tried to make an afternoon appointment for the chiropractor thinking I pulled something, but within the hour, I lost the ability to stand up and walk, the pain was so intense.
I sent a text to my team that freaked them out: I’m going to the hospital. In the 15+ years we’ve worked together, I’ve rarely gone to the doctor, and I’ve never visited the ER for myself. If they were getting this message, it was a true emergency.
On my end, the next few hours were a blur. The rural hospital that we drove to was full. By this point, I couldn’t even get out of thet back seat of the car, so the solution was to call an ambulance (again, which I would have NEVER done on my own) so I could get right into the larger hospital that could treat me.
My pain was so intense that my blood pressure was 210/118 in the ambulance. I remember them freaking out that they had to give me something so that I didn’t have a heart attack. Next thing I know, they shot me up with very strong narcotics and got me to the hospital.
While I’ve never experienced pain like that in my life (and, TMI, I delivered both of my children naturally), the cause was nothing life-threatening. I herniated L4-L6, which is doing crazy things to my sciatic, without even having an exciting story to tell about it. They gave me steroids, sent me to a spinal surgeon, chiropractor, and I’m doing PT.
So why am I sharing this story? And what does it have to do with you and your law firm? During those few hours when I was loopy, I never told my girls that I went to a different hospital by ambulance. In fact, the last they heard from me, I was still kind of limping, debating if I was really going to the ER. They had no idea how badly things went off the rails.
When I went silent for a few hours, they knew what to do. Years ago, we all provided emergency contact numbers that could be called in a pickle. For me, that was my daughter.
Amber texted Bree and she filled her in on what happened. The girls then realized how bad things got and knew I’d be out for a few days and took over the reins. That couldn’t have happened without this backup form of communication, and the fact I have an incredible team.
I was also thinking about how, just recently, a colleague had a key staff member FALL OFF THE FACE OF THE EARTH one day. This was her membership coordinator—one of her most trusted and important employees who suddenly stopped answering emails, wasn’t picking up the phone, and they had no other way to reach her because they never thought to get a backup number for her husband or other family members. She ended up getting really sick and couldn’t communicate that to the team until she was stable, which took 3 days. Can you imagine the chaos and worry for all involved?
If it’s been a while since you’ve done this in your firm, I hope this is the catalyst for you to update your records today. Ask your staff members to submit one or two emergency contacts that could be reached in a true emergency.
And, make sure someone on your team has this same information for you, too.
Crossing fingers you don’t ever need to use them!