Two emergencies this week... One tool watch

I called 911 twice this week (emergency services for the Crunchers outside of the U.S.)— first time for fire, and the second time for police.

The current watch in the rotation has been the Sinn EZM 1.1S, which was a perfect coincidence because when the excrement hits the fan... this is the watch I would want in those moments.

I got out of the shower earlier this week and smelled smoke. It smelled like a really strong electrical fire, but I couldn't locate the specific source. My house was built in 1917, so the electrical wiring situation was an immediate consideration. Unable to locate the source, I just hit the button on my chronograph, and we called 911 for the fire department.

The 911 dispatch said that they were experiencing a heavy call load, so they did not have a specific ETA. Assuming that the fire was still in its smoldering stage, I set my countdown bezel for 15 minutes and began my response sequence.

1. Obviously the first priority was to get my golden retriever leashed up and outside. I secured him to a fixture outside my house.

2. Next, I rounded up the fire extinguishers in my house and staged them for potential use.

3. Then I made a sweep to see if I could locate the source of the smoke. (no dice.)

4. Unable to locate the smoke, I ran outside to check on my dog, get into the fresh air, and see if I could locate any source of smoke from the outside (in case it was an attic fire).

5. While I was outside, I checked my countdown bezel to see where we were on response time and the running chronograph to see what our time elapsed was on the smoldering fire.

6. No smoke visible from the outside, I went back inside to make another attempt to locate the smoke.

7. At this point, I started thinking about my ammunition crate, and I had to assess if it was too close to the general area where I suspected the fire, and if the crate would need to be moved... if so... where was the safest place to move it? I didn't want to leave a crate of ammunition unsupervised outside, but I also didn't want it to become a liability in the event that the fire situation accelerates...

I list this sequence because I want to illustrate how in an emergency, you it doesn't take long for your brain to hit task saturation.

The Sinn EZM 1.1 doesn't get a lot of attention, but when it really counts— this visibility is lightning quick:

(not taken during the actual event... I know better than to take wrist shots during an emergency)

The fire department finally came and as the firefighters were getting out of the truck, they asked how long had I been smelling the smoke and I looked down, and saw the central chrono hand was clearly on 25 minutes.

That moment was huge.

In a moment of high adrenaline, there was zero hesitation. I didn't have to squint at a tiny subregister. I didn't have to guess or ballpark the time. Your ability to judge elapsed time when you think your house is going to burn down is completely trashed. The ability to give the firefighters the most accurate information, with confidence, right away— was a small moment that really made me love the design of this watch.

The firefighters confirmed the smoke smelled electrical and began sweeping the house with a thermal imaging camera. We eventually identified the source— the water heater.

I didn't think much about that fire incident until this afternoon when we had to call 911 for police help. I still had the Sinn EZM 1.1 on, and so I hit the chronograph as soon as we got off the phone with the dispatcher. My city is currently experiencing a bit of a staffing shortage of police officers— but you really don't know how bad it is until you really need a police officer and you're left waiting.

This isn't a critique about the department's response time— but hitting the chronograph right away allowed me to mark the incident time, which freed my mind to focus on some more immediate tasks.

The central chronograph and relatively sterile dial made reading the incident time clear and fast. In an emergency- that's all you need. The red text on the dial just melts into the background during an emergency when you need a clear reference on time elapsed/time remaining.

When you start feeling the pump of adrenaline, it doesn't take much before your brain hits task saturation. Forcing yourself to try and remember when something first happened, or how long it's been since ____ happened is really hard.

The ability to offload that from your memory and free up brainpower to focus on more immediate tasks is HUGE in an emergency.

The ability to reference specific times/time elapsed, etc and provide that information with precision only helps the emergency responders make better decisions under pressure because you're giving them the highest quality information available to inform their situational assessment.

Everyone is fine, everything worked out in both situations. But these are the kinds of moments that cement the bonds we form with our watches.

Whenever we look at our watches, we anchor them to specific memories and stories. I thought my action-packed days were behind me when I left the Army, and I thought this would just be a little memento to look backwards and remember my past life—

—but it turns out I have a little companion that helps me respond at my best in the unpredictable moments that count for the rest of my life moving forward.