Emergency responders rush into a home after receiving a report of a patient.
They quickly take off their shoes at the entrance, but the way the shoes are placed looks a bit unusual.
One person's shoes are pointing toward the door, while the other responders' shoes are placed sideways facing each other.
When the homeowner saw this, they neatly lined up the shoes, but this is an action that should not have been done.
This is a video recently posted on social media by the Kanazawa Fire Department in Ishikawa Prefecture, Japan.
The fire department has only one request.
"Please leave the shoes taken off by emergency responders as they are."
There was a reason for this.
Kanazawa emergency response teams operate in groups of three. When transporting a patient, the team leader takes charge of the head of the stretcher, while the other two responders position themselves on both sides.
Depending on these roles, even from the moment they enter where the patient is, the position and direction where each person takes off their shoes are different.
This is so they can put their shoes right back on without letting go of the stretcher when carrying the patient back to the entrance.
However, if someone rearranges the shoes, the responders have to search for their own shoes again and maneuver their bodies while holding the patient to slip their feet into them.
The fire department explains that this can cause their bodies to wobble, shake the patient, or create the risk of the patient's oxygen mask coming off.
The Kanazawa Fire Department explained that if someone changes the location of the shoes, it can take an estimated 30 extra seconds during the patient transport process.
While it is a short time under normal circumstances, it is a different story when transporting emergency patients.
In Kanazawa, there are about 60 to 70 emergency dispatches on average per day, and the fire department explained that, subjectively speaking, in 10 to 20 percent of all dispatches—around 10 times a day—someone organizes the responders' shoes.
The Katano City Fire Department in Osaka Prefecture also previously released a similar video asking people not to touch emergency responders' shoes to ensure smooth patient transport.
South Korea's National Fire Agency guidelines for emergency responders do not have separate regulations regarding the direction or arrangement of responders' shoes.
(Reported by Sim Yeong-gu | Edited by Na Hong-hee | Designed by Lee Jeong-ju | Produced by SBS Digital News)
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