One of my previous jobs was as a Safety Officer and Certified Diving Medical Technician on commercial dive vessels. Part of my duties was to attend to the medical needs of Divers both before and after their dives. At the same time, I was responsible for the overall safety management of the vessel’s lifesaving equipment for diving and non-diving personnel. I was also responsible for scheduling and conducting various safety drills to maintain emergency preparedness on the vessel. Fire Drills, Evacuation Drills, and Man Overboard Drills to name a few.
I was thinking about the importance of the Man Overboard Drill and staying prepared to rescue anyone that goes into the water unexpectedly. In a real-life man overboard situation, the person that first sees someone in the water has to immediately initiate the response. Every person onboard must be trained and know exactly what to do if they see someone fall into the sea.
Upon seeing a person fall into the water or noticing a person in the water, the witness is required to immediately yell out “MAN OVERBOARD!” as loudly as they can. They must get someones attention so that the rescue process can be initiated. They also are expected to keep their eyes fixed on the person in the water, so their exact location is never lost, as well as deploy any available floatation device. On a vessel that is underway, it is vital to the rescue that the ALL STOP order be giving quickly to minimize the distance between the man overboard that their rescuers.
The remainder of the crew, regardless of their prior duties, now has but one job, to rescue their shipmate. Lifeboatmen are assigned to deploy a rescue boat and get to the person’s location as quickly as possible. Whatever it takes, however long it takes, rescuing their lost shipmate is priority one.
Sometimes it happens too quickly, or the seas are too rough, and the person becomes lost at sea, never to be heard from or seen again. Then the captain of the vessel will study the event to determine if mistakes were made and will seek guidance on how to prevent recurrence and other ways to improve response. And everyone on board will usually question themselves if there may have been more they could have done to prevent this tragedy
One important thing to note is that no one has the job of going around telling everyone why they fell in, or how foolish they were for falling in. No one is assigned the task of discussing how much they deserved to fall in or how it was their own fault that they fell in. Everyone has the same task, the safe rescue of their shipmate.
Sometimes we are too quick to give up on someone, too easily distracted from their cause. Even before we know if they are safe we start picking their situation apart. When we should be calling out to the ships crew “MAN OVERBOARD!” and getting in touch with the Captian and Master to help with a quick rescue.
Most of us have had low days and questioned our position in the Kingdom of God and maybe walked a little too close to the edge, or maybe even fallen in. Usually, we get there by becoming distracted or by our own choices, by not praying or getting too comfortable with the world. I’ve been there, and thankfully, my Pastor was in tune enough to recognize what was happening. He gave the “Man Overboard” call and set a watch over me until I was rescued. Had it not been for his, albeit unorthodox rescue method I would likely have drifted too for to be rescued.
The church and specifically the soul of men is far more important than any job, yet in a lot of ways, we leave rescue to chance. I always say of safety and rescue procedures that “Luck is a poor substitute for a Plan.” So, what is the plan? What should we do when we see a brother or sister slipping? How should we respond? I don’t think we do a very good job of planning or preparing for these situations. This is not a criticism, it is merely an observation, an OTI, as one of my old bosses would say, an Opportunity To Improve. If I’m slapping anyone here, it’s myself. So do we have a Rescue Crew? Do we run Man Overboard drills?
Acting shocked, offended or disappointed is NOT the answer. There’s just so little understanding about how we should be successful at such an important task. How should we respond? First, we should pray, pray, pray. Touch Heaven for their situation; then we need to be a support to them, show them the true Love of the Almighty, Kindness, and Compassion. Judgment is not in our job description, right, so leave that to God. Remember these words when you weary “But for the Grace of God this could be me.”
I’m asking you for prayer. Help me Prayer for Wisdom, Knowledge, and Understanding to know how to be a spiritual Lifeboatman, to understand how to rescue souls from the very mouth of destruction, to pull them back into the safety of the vessel. I also want to help the saints to understand this as well and be Rescuers of the fallen!
I hope you are Blessed and Called to Action as I am by this
God Bless You Richly,
Greg
The Swimming Axehead 