You’d think that after years as the Lead Crisis Negotiator for the New Zealand Police, I’d have a brain wired for calm, clarity, and perfectly timed decision-making.
But here’s what I know - my brain can handle armed offenders, but give it a puddle and suddenly it wants to take annual leave.
A few years ago, I was driving home from Northland during Cyclone Gabrielle. Stay up there, it’s safer, I was told by my family. Ha, I’ve got this, I told myself.
Rain sideways, winds howling, trees doing yoga poses they were never designed for.
Ignore that, Google said it can get me home if I go this way, an idea from my dumb brain!
I came around a bend and drove into flooding across the road.
My professional crisis-trained mind said, “We can assess this calmly.”
My amygdala: “Send it.”
Not ideal, but if you go fast enough, the water will disperse, and another idea of my dumb brain.
I drove in, the car stalled instantly, so I went from “experienced crisis negotiator” to “man sitting motionless in a slowly floating car questioning all his life choices.”
I had to call Fire and Emergency New Zealand; I couldn’t open the door due to the water up to window height.
And here’s the best part: by the time they arrived, the water had receded so much that it looked like I’d parked slightly enthusiastically in a damp driveway.
They didn’t have to say anything, the look said it all: “Really? You needed rescuing? Here?”
I wanted to explain neuroscience - how the brain misjudges risks during sensory overload, and how the amygdala hijacks rational thinking.
But honestly, nothing excuses getting defeated by a puddle.
So, I just stood there, nodding, trying to look like someone who called emergency services for a situation that a particularly motivated duck could have walked through.
I was slightly comforted by the fact that I was saturated up to my waist as I got out of the car.
Upon reflection, maybe that’s the point of what happened to me, a reckoning of sorts to bring reality to my training.
We can train for decades, teach emotional regulation, understand human behaviour, and stay calm under real pressure.
Yet real life still finds a way to humble us.
If your brain ever overreacts to the wrong thing or fails to react to the right thing, trust me: you’re not alone.
Even crisis negotiators need rescuing sometimes. Mine just happened to be a puddle.
Let’s talk!
Foiled By A Puddle!