Once you survive a violent conflict, there are hosts of other consequences to address. Your first order of business, however, must be survival. If you have been injured during a fight, you may have to take care of yourself until professional help can arrive. First, you need to make a mental commitment to live. Your attitude plays a large part in your ability to survive. It’s also important to know how to treat your own injuries as you may be on your own for a long time until paramedics or other assistance can arrive.
Once you have taken care of any life-threatening injuries, you will want to turn your attention to notifying the authorities, calling your attorney, contacting your wife, girlfriend, or appropriate family member, and identifying any witnesses who may be able to testify about your actions and those of your adversary. It is extraordinarily important to act in a manner that demonstrates to any who observe a violent encounter that you are the victim rather than the instigator of the attack. Always act as if you are on video camera, even if no one else is around. Assume anything you do will be interpreted in the most derogatory manner possible and likely used against you in a court of law. Calculate your verbal response and physical actions to put yourself in the best possible light.
It’s tough to remember to do this if you are in pain or shock from a traumatic experience but your fight on the street is only the first of several fights you may endure. While you may or may not have to fight to work through and recover from injuries and/ or emotional scars, you almost certainly will have to fight for your freedom and livelihood in court. Your defense begins before the altercation gets physical and often doesn’t end for months or years to come. While the opening salvo is playing to any witnesses who might see the fight or video equipment that might record what happened, one of the most important skirmishes will be your first contact with the police.
Win or lose, there’s always a cost to engaging in violence.
When the authorities arrive, approach the responding officers calmly and politely. A confrontational attitude will do you no good. Follow the officers’ instructions without hesitation. Expect to be arrested. It may or may not happen, but if you are arrested do not resist for any reason. Similarly, do not interfere with an attempt to arrest anyone who is with you at the time.
Do not, under any circumstances, make any incriminating statements that may be used against you at a later time. Despite Miranda[29] requirements, your fundamental rights and responsibilities may not always be clearly spelled out by the responding officers, especially in any conversations that precede an arrest. Remember that you have a Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination and that it is often prudent to have an attorney present during any questioning. Your priority should be to alleviate or minimize any potential charges against you, so be enormously cautious about what you say and do.
The legal process is arduous, complicated, and expensive. It generally begins with an arrest followed by a booking, arraignment, evidentiary hearing, and trial. At times, an appeal will be necessary as well. Because your freedom, family, livelihood, and reputation are on the line, it is essential to have a highly skilled and experienced attorney to help you navigate the process. You should always carry the phone number of an attorney you can trust and of a person who can contact a lawyer for you if yours is not immediately available. That means, of course, that you will need to be proactive and find an attorney before you need one. More on that later…
Killing or crippling another human being is traumatic, even when it’s absolutely the right thing to do in order to preserve your own life and well-being. The other guy might be a total scumbag while he’s attacking you, but he’s still a person, someone with a family, friends, and loved ones who will miss him when he’s gone. For example, serial killer Ted Bundy’s mother’s last words to him were, “You will always be my precious son.” She said that right before he was executed by the State of Florida for his crimes.[30]
If you put someone down on his street, there is no legal process, proceedings, or appeal. There is no judge or jury, only an executioner. You fight. You win. He dies. Sure, lesser outcomes are certainly possible, but it’s important to prepare yourself mentally for that ultimate eventuality. It all takes place in the blink of an eye, yet you’ll undoubtedly remember it for the rest of your life if it goes that far. That sort of thing is not trivial stuff. It can be very tough to deal with, a great argument for avoiding violent confrontations in the first place, as well as a great argument for seeking psychological counseling to put your head in the right place afterward. Win or lose, there’s always a cost to engaging in violence.
Win or lose, there’s always a cost to engaging in violence. Once you survive a violent conflict, there are a host of other consequences to address, including first aid, legal issues, managing witnesses, dealing with the press, interacting with law enforcement, and dealing with psychological trauma. The fight itself is only the beginning. Your first priority afterward must be to ensure your survival. Once you have taken care of any life-threatening injuries, you can begin to deal with everything else.
We’ll go through these things in more detail shortly. At the overview level, however, your most important priority is staying alive and dealing with injuries. Next comes managing witnesses and interacting with law enforcement. We hope you won’t need to do so, but you must be prepared to navigate the legal system next. Finally, you’ll have to deal with any psychological trauma you’ve sustained from the encounter.
It Only Takes a Microsecond… And Then You’re in Survival Mode
Hence, the skillful fighter puts himself into a position that makes defeat impossible, and does not miss the moment.
Speed implies that things seem fast or slow, according to whether or not they are in rhythm. Whatever the Way, the master of strategy does not appear fast.
Real fights occur at closer ranges and with much greater speed and intensity than any sparring match. When bad things happen on the street, life-threatening injuries can take place in the blink of an eye. Mentally shifting into survival mode, while critical for your continued existence, can be a significant challenge if you are unprepared. While this is often necessary in a fight, it can happen in other venues as well.
The following story is a real-life example of dealing with a serious injury. While it didn’t happen in a fight, there was a stabbing involved.
Kane’s big project over a three-day Memorial Day weekend was building a knife and fork carving set for some friends as a present for their 50th wedding anniversary. Although he had not yet sharpened the blade, he had already finished the metalwork and was in the process of attaching the handle materials when things went awry. First, he got the blade and handle all glued up, but instead of setting it back on the shelf to dry as he usually did, he left it on a low bench to put up once he got the fork done too. After he finished clamping up the fork, he turned around, took a step toward the bench, and managed to stab himself in the thigh with the knife.
Killing another human being is traumatic, even when it’s absolutely the right thing to do in order to preserve your own life. The other guy might be a total scumbag while he’s attacking you, but he’s still a person, someone with a family, friends, and loved ones who will miss him when he’s gone.
Guess what, it was a lot sharper than he had realized. In a microsecond, he got a three-quarter-inch wide, one-and-a-half-inch deep hole in his leg… Thankfully, it missed all the major arteries, but it was a very serious wound nevertheless. At first, it didn’t hurt much; most knife cuts don’t, but the considerable pool of blood collecting in his sock demonstrated that it was not something to be taken lightly. While this particular incident stemmed from an accident, it plays out much the same way in a fight. Most stabbing victims do not realize that they’ve been cut
