How to get people to pay attention to a safety briefing

Or Anything Else That’s Boring, for that matter.

The secret is simple: Tell them something they’re absolutely not expecting and not wanting to hear.

Yesterday, a mate and I drove 90 minutes into south Wales for what was expected to be an afternoon of gorge climbing. It had sounded delightful when I booked it. We’d done some climbing last spring up in north Wales, some 1000-metre hills in Snowdonia. Really fun stuff. Gorge climbing sounded pretty tame in comparison.

I should have twigged when the email came that confirmed our booking and asked my height and weight, so’s they’d have an appropriate wetsuit.

It’s amazing how the mind can filter out stuff it doesn’t want to hear.

We showed up at noon on the dot. Stunning October colours were on the Welsh hillsides, as we crossed a fast-flowing river to our destination. Stu, our guide for the event, handed us our wetsuits.

OK, so maybe we’ll be climbing near some waterfalls, and might get a little wet. Fair enough.

For those who’ve never tried it, getting into a wetsuit resembles trying to put on shoes that are two sizes too small for you, only this time, you’re doing it with your whole body. After enduring this anguish for twenty minutes, we had finally shoehorned our way into them.

Stu then handed us lifejackets and helmets.

Alarm bells start tinkling somewhere aft of my cranium. Didn’t know there were going to be boats involved.

With lifejackets and helmets donned, “OK, just a quick safety briefing. When we get to the river’s edge, the water is really cold and fast. Don’t dive in, just jump in with your butt down and try to keep your hands and feet in the air. Wait until the water calms down where you can see that rock downstream. Then you’ll be able to stand up and slowly move to shore.”

Whoa, whoa, whoa. Rewind. Rewind.

Jump in?

Canuck though I be, and theoretically therefore used to cold, I’m not crazy.

“The water will be cold, so just try to concentrate on breathing steadily once you’ve come to the surface.”

“When we come to climb up the waterfalls, if the current makes you slip, try not to put your hands down, use your feet if possible. And when we do some jumping off the waterfalls, jump where you see me jump, because some of the pools have shallow ledges, and you don’t want to go in there. Ready? Let’s go.”

The alarm bells are ringing shrilly now. It’s not a cold day, but we crossed that river just before arrival, and I didn’t notice any steam rising from the surface. I have signed up for a fool’s errand, but that thing known as the Masculine Ego was now staring me in the face. Are you man or are you mouse?

With my nose twitching, and visions of small cheese chunks entering my mind, I dumbly follow my guide and my Masculine Ego down the lane.

C’mon boy, you’re a Canuck, you can take cold better than any Brit.

We’ve reached the river’s edge.

Drat. He really isn’t kidding. Kimbell, you fool.

To cut to the chase, we did jump in, and had a riproaring time for the next three hours . . . . caving, fording up some very fast current waterfalls, jumping into eddy pools, climbing rocks, and generally behaving like the teenagers we haven’t been for a long, longtime. The water was viciously cold, and we were cold for three hours, most of the time feeling neither hands nor feet. And nothing prepares you for the shock of that first leap in. But after you’ve floated downstream, crawled out, and then jump in again . . . . the mouse turns adrenalyn junkie. And you wanna.

On the way home in the car (with the heat on full blast), I reflected on that safety briefing at the start.

Seldom has anybody gotten my attention quite so quickly.

I wonder if they could employ this technique in the safety briefings they give on airliners, without any humourless passenger suing?