Lights everywhere, blinking. People, too, shouting. Not screaming, mind, shouting: these are voices that need to perform urgent communication and have very ritualized phrases to use for that very purpose. What might be mistaken for frenzied panic was, in fact, frantic activity. The difference being subtle but important. Those on site know what to do, and that they have to do it quickly, and somehow the combination of those two pieces of situational awareness do not clash as much as it ought. There is no time to waste, but also no time to panic.

From my viewpoint, a window some floors above in the main hospital building, I concluded that most hospital entrances were dramatic, albeit not all of them with such a richness of blinking lights. Once you are through the doors and where you are supposed to be, though, things slow down. They always do, once the immediate uncertainty is out of the picture.

This is not to say that the drama or uncertainty goes away, or that you somehow magically find out what to do in the time left to do it. But things do slow down. And that counts for something.