“What’s the biggest misunderstanding about firefighters?”
I asked.
“That’s easy. We don’t get cats out of trees.”
There are many other risky careers not included in
Musolino and Hershenson’s study. If being a test pilot, police offi-
cer, or firefighter doesn’t require someone to be a high sensation-
seeker across the board, what would? Maybe an emergency room
nurse or doctor, an astronaut? Perhaps the military special forces?The High Sensation-seeker in the Emergency Room
“It’s exhilarating, I guess, for me. It’s like torture, but, at the same
time you just love it and want more of it. You know what I mean?”
This was Hannah’s response when I asked her why she
loved being an ER nurse so much.
“I think the people who stay working in ER, they definitely
process it differently, like it energizes them maybe...Some people
under stress they’ll shut down. But, I think maybe people in the
ER – the people who like it – they’re at their best when they’re
under pressure, like athletes somehow.”
It was beginning to sound like there was something to my
hypothesis that emergency medical practitioners had to have
a high sensation-seeking personality. After all, what environment
could possibly be more varied and more challenging? A new health
crisis presents itself at every turn, people’s lives are at stake, and
the decisions the ER technician makes in real time can mean life or
death. Aside from BASE jumping into the Grand Canyon or hanging
from a building by one hand it’s hard to imagine an environment
more filled with sensation.
Hannah certainly seemed to agree with me about this, and
her life told that story. When I asked her if she engaged in high
sensation-seeking activities outside of work she blithely replied, “I
would say most of it is at work, I’ve done things in the past that
were, I guess, thrill-seeking like snowboarding. I used to dive off the
10-meter platform. I did some skydiving, that kind of thing.
I wouldn’t say I’m an adrenaline junkie, but I’ve definitely done
things like that in the past.” Skydiving? Snowboarding? These are
certainly high sensation-seeking activities in my view. I wasn’t sure
about her claim that she wasn’t an adrenaline junkie either. When
I pressed her for more, asking questions about what her friends did
after work, I felt like the curtain was pulled back even further.121 / All in a Day’s WorkDownloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Access paid by the UCSF Library, on 11 Nov 2019 at 14:18:48, subject to the Cambridge