What would you have done?

Post Reply New Topic

Once I was in a supermarket and a fire alarm suddenly sounded. It was loud enough to hear. But when I looked around, everyone was just carrying on with their shopping and ignoring it, so I assumed the alarm was nothing serious and so I just ignored it and continued on with my shopping too.

Then a member of staff spoke on the intercom for us to evacuate because the alarm was going off, so then everybody did. Good job it was just a false alarm, because otherwise everyone might have been in danger.

Is this an example of group thinking? Noticing something but then seeing everyone else ignoring it so you ignore it too. It's like everyone was thinking the same thing. And there must have been about 200 people or more in there (a very inconvenient time to have a fire drill).

What would YOU have done? Would you have evacuated, or just copied everyone else and carried on with your shopping?

Fire alarms terrify me after I had to evacuate all of my pets by myself during one. If I saw everyone continuing with their business I would go find a staff member to ask if it's just a drill, or if we should actually evacuate. I don't want to wrongly freak out, nor do I want to just wait around to die because everyone else was doing so.

First I would have frozen and panicked. Then I think I would have looked for a member of staff to see what they were doing. I don’t think I would have trusted fellow shoppers’ behaviour. I would have worried about what to do with my basket of groceries if it was a real fire alarm. I don’t shop in store if I can help it. I would have found this a really unsettling experience. If I had to leave the store, I think I would just go straight home and not wait to be let back in.

I have a tendency to ignore such things since they are usually a false alarm, but I'd stay on the alert in case there's any genuine threat.

If other people ignore it, I would probably do the same.

It sometimes happens at work. I always go out to the corridor and see what other people are doing. If no one is worried, then I just ignore it but stay alert just in case.

Prolly what you did.

If there was ACTUALLY a fire, I would've check where it's coming from first (via smoke), and then evacuate.

If there was no fire when that alarm went off, then it must be either a) someone was pulling a mean prank, or b) it went off by accident.

Same thing with gas leaks.

I'd likely ignore it whether it's a false alarm or not.

Even if the fire is visible and came closer to me, I might still do my own thing unless the ground shook hard enough for me to get away from it.

Gained Number Post Count (1).
Lose Time (n).

Lose more time here - Updates at least once a week.

Yeah, that's group thinking. Unless I would've smelled or seen something myself, I would've followed other people's example, too... except maybe if I had just gotten there and hadn't picked any groceries yet; then I might've just put the basket down and gotten out.

Honestly though, this kind of thinking is dangerous. What if it was an actual emergency, yet nobody reacted because they thought it was a drill, and then when people realized it wasn't, some time would've already been lost and people might panic, everyone trying to get out at once... yeah, maybe I should just leave the store if the alarm rings, even if others aren't doing anything.

Leave. Simply because of how quickly a small fire can turn into a big fire and panic gets everyone trapped and suffocating.

However, since it's me, I'd likely wait around the main exit just in case it is serious in an attempt to calm down the people fleeing so the exits aren't blocked and helping anyone that needs it (vulnerable, those that fall over and so on). Don't ask me why I'm like this because I don't know myself.

Leave, but if not stay in the store and ignore it.

if no one else was leaving i would probably just carry on what i was doing but be anxious about it.