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Please don't rearrange our shoes when we turn up, paramedics in Japan urge

theguardian.com

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Re: Please don't rearrange our shoes when we turn up, paramedics in Japan urge

#101

Post by ErroneousBosh »

Georgelemental wrote: post #83
analog31 wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A friend of mine who was a paramedic told me that getting people out of a building is actually heavy, dangerous work. "They always die on the crapper, up 3 flights of stairs." Also, in my town, the firefighters are also paramedics. The first people who showed up in my Moment of Need came in a fire truck. The ambulance came a couple minutes later.

For particularly heavy patients, on occasion the only way is to knock down a wall.

I think I've mentioned it before here but at a hospital near me a few years ago they got a bariatric patient in who was so large they couldn't weigh her. I suggested that since they were near a VOSA inspection site they could have just had the whole ambulance on the weighbridge, but apparently when someone is around 350kg you kind of don't need that degree of accuracy.

The hospital facilities team removed the front doors and the unboltable parts of the frame, and then gassed off the handrails and wheelchair ramp fittings to give access.

The ambulance arrived followed by a fire brigade Landrover with four guys in and a rescue pump with another five. It took all of them to lift the patient into the hospital on a canvas sling.

Re: Please don't rearrange our shoes when we turn up, paramedics in Japan urge

#102

Post by thaumasiotes »

jimmydddd wrote: post #44
Gigachad wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your feet do not need support, they were evolved over millions of years to support themselves. Someone who habitually wears shoes indoors might lose the muscle strength in their feet in the same way someone who drives everywhere loses leg strength, but this isn't natural or optimal.

Agreed. But you have to go shoeless throughout your youth so that the bones and muscles of the foot grow strong. This is true, for example, with kids in some African countries. There was a trend of barefoot running in the US in the 2010's (see Barefoot Sensei), but most people who tried this ended up quitting it as it's hard to shift to this style in, say, your 40's, after a lifetime of wearing shoes.

> But you have to go shoeless throughout your youth so that the bones and muscles of the foot grow strong.

Well, more directly, if you want to be going around barefoot outside, you have to go barefoot for a while in order to harden the skin on the bottom of your feet. It will happen naturally, given enough time, but walking around outdoors with soft feet will hurt like crazy. Bones and muscles are secondary.

In an American context, the primary reason to wear shoes is to prevent parasites on the ground from infecting you through your feet. Shoes are the single most important public health measure in American history, beating out handwashing.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Necator_americanus

Re: Please don't rearrange our shoes when we turn up, paramedics in Japan urge

#103

Post by echoangle »

f33d5173 wrote: post #30
cannonpr wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, I can’t honestly personally understand taking your shoes off in an emergency, however I am sure they have gotten very efficient at it.. I can say that if they didn’t it would cause damage to the home, many Japanese homes, especially traditional but also in general just aren’t built to take shoes. Tatami mats, and even hinoki floors despite being “hard” for a softwood, is still a softwood, so some level of genuine…

Most shoes have rubber soles, to do damage to the floor it would have to be softer than rubber.

I’m not saying the shoes would damage the floor but that’s not really true. Both sides of the contact get some wear, even if one of them is softer.

Re: Please don't rearrange our shoes when we turn up, paramedics in Japan urge

#104

Post by askvictor »

theonething wrote: post #12

tangential, but I don't understand why keeping your shoes on in your house is a thing. It's so unsanitary. The bottom of your shoes are in contact with things like the floor of public bathrooms, animal feces (when walking on grass), dirt, mud, etc. And it's so much more comfortable to be in your house barefoot, with socks or with slippers. So much cleaner. I'm disgusted when people try to walk in my house with their…

Cleanliness is overrated. Sure, it's great for surgery and if you actually have a wound, but your immune system needs pathogens to train on, or it does silly things like attacking your body, or reacting to pollens.

Re: Please don't rearrange our shoes when we turn up, paramedics in Japan urge

#105

Post by bauruine »

wodenokoto wrote: post #38
shdon wrote: post #7

In Dutch culture it is far more common to keep shoes on literally everywhere, so perhaps I'm biased, but I would think that in an emergency where every second counts, these people can be forgiven for not adhering to the strictest etiquette? I'm not surprised the person last mentioned in the article, who suggests exactly that, got 800 likes on their comment. I am surprised that it even needed to be said. Now I'm sudde…

I think we can roughly split paramedic visits into “patient needs to get out ASAP” and patient can’t get out alone or with help of friends and family”, so I would hope they keep their shoes on for the first type. But ambulances in with full sirens begging over their speaker-system to have pedestrians at Shibuya crossing let the vehicle through, is probably the worst thing about Japan. As for your second question, I’m…

>No, water damage

That's what we learned in fire fighting training. Everything that doesn't get destroyed by the fire and smoke will get destroyed by the water you use to put the fire out. A house on fire is lost. You just save people and animals and then you do whatever you need to protect the neighbouring structures.

Re: Please don't rearrange our shoes when we turn up, paramedics in Japan urge

#106

Post by charcircuit »

askvictor wrote: post #104
theonething wrote: post #12

tangential, but I don't understand why keeping your shoes on in your house is a thing. It's so unsanitary. The bottom of your shoes are in contact with things like the floor of public bathrooms, animal feces (when walking on grass), dirt, mud, etc. And it's so much more comfortable to be in your house barefoot, with socks or with slippers. So much cleaner. I'm disgusted when people try to walk in my house with their…

Cleanliness is overrated. Sure, it's great for surgery and if you actually have a wound, but your immune system needs pathogens to train on, or it does silly things like attacking your body, or reacting to pollens.

It civilized to live in a clean home instead of a dirty mess. Life is not just about maximizing your survival rate.

Re: Please don't rearrange our shoes when we turn up, paramedics in Japan urge

#107

Post by 21asdffdsa12 »

Georgelemental wrote: post #20

Here in America, EMS personnel generally wear tall, reinforced boots; they are considered protective/safety equipment. We would never take them off just to enter a home

It also seems quite dangerous to take them off- depending on the home. Some hoarders, drug addicted situations have needles, glass shards and razor blades in the debris on the floor. How do they handle hoarders in japan?

Re: Please don't rearrange our shoes when we turn up, paramedics in Japan urge

#108

Post by bschwindHN »

kstrauser wrote: post #92
Izkata wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where I grew up (suburbs in the Midwest in the US) it was common and expected all around that you'd leave your shoes just inside the door and walk around in your socks, at least for family/friends/guests. Can't remember about service workers.

Where I grew up (suburbs in the Midwest in the US) no one took their shoes off, ever, until it was bedtime. I cannot remember a single time taking my shoes of at a friend's house, or when visiting somewhere with my parents, or going off to see family. I guess the only exception would be if the shoes were exceedingly dirty, like you'd just stepped in mud or such. Similarly in the military. We got un-booted at bedtime,…

I grew up in the suburbs in Ohio, the majority of my family and friends took their shoes off at the door.

I can't imagine feet in socks would be dirtier than the bottom of a shoe, but I guess it depends on where you walk, and how nasty you let your feet get. Like if you use a public restroom and then walk on carpets in your home, that's just gross. Maybe you walked in a park where dogs play. Good chance of tracking some dog shit into the house.

Re: Please don't rearrange our shoes when we turn up, paramedics in Japan urge

#109

Post by Faaak »

21asdffdsa12 wrote: post #107
Georgelemental wrote: post #20

Here in America, EMS personnel generally wear tall, reinforced boots; they are considered protective/safety equipment. We would never take them off just to enter a home

It also seems quite dangerous to take them off- depending on the home. Some hoarders, drug addicted situations have needles, glass shards and razor blades in the debris on the floor. How do they handle hoarders in japan?

Obviously, it depends on the context once the front door opens to you

Re: Please don't rearrange our shoes when we turn up, paramedics in Japan urge

#110

Post by jillesvangurp »

bjelkeman-again wrote: post #77
vkazanov wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this how most of the world operates? :-)

In the Nordics (SE, FI, NO, DK) it is pretty much the same. A large part of the year your shoes are a mess and you don’t want that indoors.

When I worked in Helsinki, it was quite common to see people do this in the office as well. Some people that were otherwise appropriately dressed (business casual) would be walking around on slippers. Always thought that was slightly funny. Very practical though. I had some rugged hiking boots that I wore in the winter there that definitely would come off when I got to work.
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