We prepare for every drilling scenario possible, but we do not do a good enough job preparing for the worst. There are two schools of thought about dangerous situations: The first group believes it will not happen to me, and the second group expects to be eaten by wolves. I want to be safe, but I also want to be prepared to fight the wolves with everything I’ve got. We get into a rhythm on a jobsite; we know what it is going to take to finish a hole in a given area, and we just go and do it. What about the unknowns, the acts that we do not do enough to help us get into a rhythm? When we were in grade school, we had to practice what to do in case of a fire or injury. Emergency planning on a drill site is just as important as when we were in grade school.
This is the situation: You are on an irrigation well in the middle of a cornfield and your helper collapses on the ground. What do you do? Even worse, you are the one to collapse in the field, what does he do? Can he call 911 and guide them in from the road? How often do we jump in the rig and drive to the jobsite with the water truck following without discussing our actual location? Sure we know that we are four miles from Thompson’s Corners Party Store, and we could get back to the shop without thinking, but when your heart is racing and an emergency is happening, can you explain to the 911 operator how to get to you?