How do you know when to panic?

I was watching the Springboks take on the All Blacks on TV. The match was being played at Mbombela stadium in Nelspruit. A few seconds into the match…34 seconds actually…Springbok number 9 Faf de Klerk was lying unconscious on the grass after a head collision with Caleb Clarke’s knee. I remember how calm the rest of the Springbok squad looked as the medical team hurried onto the field to assist de Klerk. Deep down I was in a complete panic and asking myself whether he would get up again and how serious the injury was. Yes I was panicking. But nobody else assisting the player on the field looked like they were.

I had a similar but less dramatic experience watching my son’s under 7 soccer team. One of the opposing players put in a gruesome open studded tackle against one of my son’s team mates. The ref duly stopped play and awarded a free kick while the child writhed in pain. The team coach, however, did not look too worried, simply gave the boy a hug and he got up wiped his tears and proceeded to play an excellent game of football. I kept asking myself whether we should have been panicking and taking this child’s injuries more seriously. How did the coach know that the player would be able to walk it off ? Should he have been more worried?

Now a familiar non sporting example. About 18 months into the start of the COVI-19 pandemic many communities were beginning to crave their normal routines and also had become fed up with the requirement to wear face masks. Many companies had started returning staff to offices as a result. I remember how awkward it was arriving at the office with any hint of flu like symptoms. This “weird flu”…could be due to allergies, a common cold or COVID-19? In fact it could be due to a whole lot of other things, but of course the one we were worried about was COVID-19. Was it better to overreact and self isolate at the slightest sign of flu like symptoms? Or better to assume that the symptoms were benign and continue to live a normal work life?

How, therefore, does one ever know how seriously to take a dose of bad news and also when they are overreacting?

Of course the easiest answer to this conundrum is to use actual life experience. So in the case of Faf de Klerk the team doctor and medical staff would have know from experience exactly how to ascertain how serious the situation was. But what if you don’t have experience? Like my son’s football coach who isn’t a medical doctor and has no medical training or experience.

I also think of parents with multiple children. With the 1st child any hint of fever could be accompanied by a visit to the hospital as new parents will be unsure how seriously to take these symptoms. Usually by the time the 2nd, 3rd or 4th child comes along, the parents are a bit more astute in judging whether they can manage some of these symptoms at home or whether to seek medical attention.

So if you don’t have knowledge and expertise to make an accurate diagnosis about how serious a problem is, what do you do? Unfortunately, I don’t know the answer here, however, the most realistic thing I could think of was for people to solely rely on their judgement. Based on a balance of all the information available, opinions and past experiences, what do you think you should do? Being highly risk averse by nature I usually err on the side of caution and try and work out what the consequences of being wrong are. Using this thinking I then try and mitigate the scenario that would be most damaging. As an example, if the head injury is serious it could lead to brain damage and death. But if it is not serious there is no long term consequence. Therefore, I personally would treat it as serious until proven otherwise.

All else failing, I suppose the only other available course of action is to make a decision. Whether panicking or not, and use that experience to gain the knowledge so that the next time you see that scenario you will have a better idea of how seriously to take it. And do this under the full knowledge that even using this approach, you could still be wrong the next time.