Read Online The Gift of Fear: Survival Signals that Protect us from Violence by Gavin de Becker - Free Book Online

and no matter how he knew Cynthia was from Texas, we did know. But is that methodology something I’d bet my life on? I do it every day, and so do you, and I’d have done no better with conscious logic.
     
    Cynthia also talked about what she called “car body language,” her ability to predict the likely movements of cars. “I know when a car is about to edge over into my lane without signaling. I know when a car will or won’t turn left in front of me.” Most people gladly accept this ability and travel every day with absolute confidence in their car-reading skill. Clearly they are actually expert at reading people, but because we can’t see the whole person, we read his intent, level of attentiveness, competence, sobriety, caution, all through the medium of the tiny movements of those big metal objects around them.
     
    So, we think: We can predict what kangaroos and children and cars might do, but we cannot predict human behavior to save our lives.
     
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    China Leonard’s story is not about violence. It is, however, about life and death, and about the denial of intuition. She and her young son, Richard, had just settled into the pre-op room at St. Joseph’s Hospital, where Richard was soon to have minor ear surgery. He usually had a barrage of questions for doctors, but when the anesthesiologist, Dr. Joseph Verbrugge Jr., came into the room, the boy fell silent. He didn’t even answer when Dr. Verbrugge asked if he was nervous. “Look at me!” the doctor demanded, but Richard didn’t respond.
     
    The boy obviously disliked the abrupt and unpleasant doctor, and China felt the same way, but she also felt something more than that. A strong intuitive impulse crossed her mind: “ Cancel the operation ,” it boldly said, “ Cancel the operation .” She quickly suppressed that impulse and began a mental search for why it was unsound. Setting aside her intuition about Dr. Verbrugge in favor of logic and reason, she assured herself that you can’t judge someone by his personality. But again, that impulse: “ Cancel the operation .” Since China Leonard was not a worrier, it took some effort to silence her inner voice. Don’t be silly, she thought, St. Joseph’s is one of the best hospitals in the state, it’s a teaching hospital; it’s owned by the Sisters of Charity, for Christ’s sake. You just have to assume this doctor is good.
     
    With her intuition successfully beaten down, the operation went forward as scheduled, and Richard died during the minor procedure. It is a sad story that teaches us that the words “I know it” are more valuable than the words “I knew it.”
     
    Later, it was revealed that Dr. Verbrugge’s colleagues had also been concerned about him. They said he was inattentive to his work, and, most seriously, there were at least six occasions when colleagues reported that he appeared to be sleeping during surgeries. For the hospital staff, these were clear signals, but I can’t be certain what China and her son detected. I know only that they were perfectly accurate, and I accept that as good enough.
     
    There were people right at the operating table who heard and then vetoed their intuition. The surgeon told Verbrugge that Richard’s breathing was labored, but Verbrugge did nothing effective. A nurse said she was getting concerned with the boy’s distress but “chose to believe” that Verbrugge was competent.
     
    One of the doctors who reviewed how people had performed in that operating room could have been speaking about denial in general when he astutely said: “It’s like waking up in your house with a room full of smoke, opening the window to let the smoke out, and then going back to bed.”
     
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    I’ve seen many times that after the shock of violence has begun to heal, victims will be carried in their minds back to that hallway or parking lot, back to the sights, smells and sounds, back to the time when they still had choices, before