Real-Life Decision Making -- Solution
You get a jump on the fire.
Everyone is a bit uneasy because the gas is so poisonous. The work goes
slowly.
A little while later, the equipment arrives and everyone suits up. Almost
immediately, the wind changes, blowing the poisonous gas over you and your
team.
Had the equipment arrived five minutes later, you might all have been dead.
It was a silly chance to take considering how little you got accomplished.
This is the real-life decision made by oil well fire specialist
Ali Asad.
"That decision would have killed me and so many others in no time. Thank
God we were lucky. I was so stupid to have made that decision and I'd
never do it again," says Asad. "I thought the wind wouldn't change for
hours, but with nature you never know."
Generally, oil well fire specialists must be decisive. "We have zero tolerance
for errors in this business," says Bill Mahler. He is an oil well fire specialist.
If oil well fire specialists make a wrong decision, it can significantly
hurt the bottom line. "We are talking about tens of thousands of dollars being
poured out of the ground in a blowout situation, so the quicker the decision,
the better off everybody is." A wrong decision can also significantly hurt
the natural environment. And if that happens, everybody loses.