Is It a Full Moon?

The belief in Fate, a divine hand, or just plain bad luck is encouraged and promoted by our understanding that call volume has some association with innocuous universal truths. Friday the Thirteenth is a widely held bad luck date. We adamantly hold that any shift during a full moon is automatically assumed to be both busy and filled with oddity. That bad things come in threes and we just know that there are certain individuals that are a magnet for unusual calls. And possibly the worst case, any confluence of the just mentioned idiosyncratic beliefs portends real disaster for us.

Just think, if we are unlucky enough to work on Friday the Thirteenth, during a full moon, after two bad calls, with a crap magnet? We might as well receive Last Rights and make a down payment on a cemetery marker because the world is about to end!

You are chuckling to yourself, but quietly lest you bring down some form of retribution on you or your crew, because you know as soon as someone utters the phrase "it sure is quiet" all hell will break loose. The same thing happens when you challenge any of these universally accepted truths.

How do we combat these assumed truths? Should we even address them? More importantly can we use them to our advantage for training, education, or safety?

Obviously if we believe these things we should prepare for them. The full moon comes every 28 days. Friday the Thirteenth occurs every year. If we get two difficult calls can the third be far behind? All of these things must trigger a response from those of us that lead. We can use the coming full moon to plan for pending issues. Training and equipment checks can be completed or at least encouraged based on these or any other belief.

Now I'm not advocating an immediate transformation or return to support for unsubstantiated superstitious beliefs, just turning negative belly-aching woe-is-me mentality to our benefit. Maybe you can see this in other avenues. It takes time, it takes leadership, but the rewards are attainable with little or no cost.

Thinking, educated, trained risk takers developing strategies to prepare us for the future, or just a few officers using an opportunity to encourage learning and preparation. Yeah, it just might work. By the way, the next Friday the Thirteenth Full Moon is 6/13/2014. Enjoy!

Comment by Peter Lupkowski on October 19, 2010 at 2:14pm: This is exactly my point Jack. I can quote many of the same studies and statistical data and then turn around and hear that next week will stink because of this or that. I don't care if it's true (it isn't), but let's use those thoughts to further our own agenda. "You're right there will be a full moon next week. Let's make sure we are all stocked up in EMS and all the equipment is clean and put back on the engines." Advantage? Everyone.

Comment by Jack/dt on October 19, 2010 at 12:52pm: One of the things humans excel at is pattern recognition. It allows us as infants to very quickly recognize individual faces (which are a type of pattern.) Since our mind is wired to find patterns, we tend to do just that. The 'man in the moon', shapes in clouds and faces in smoke or fire are examples of pattern recognition. But we seek not only visual patterns but other patterns as well.

Trouble in threes is a good example. It's called "cognitive biases and communal reinforcement."
(http://www.skepdic.com/fullmoon.html) "Once many people believe something and enjoy a significant amount of communal reinforcement, they get very selective about the type of data they pay attention to in the future." Define "trouble", or "bad things", what's your metric? Does something have to rise above a certain level of awareness to be a problem of some kind? Or do we just remember the bigger problems and deduce that they occur in threes while excluding other, lesser events?

At http://www.skepdic.com/fullmoon.html about 2/3 down the page is data of arrests for drunk driving, beginning with day 0 (new moon) through through day 28 (new moon again). The numbers are fairly constant, with the exception of days 12, 26 and 27. There is absolutely NO pattern of an increase in drunk driving arrests on the full moon.

See here http://skepdic.com/fullmoon.html and here, http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2007/07/31/full-moon... for more info on hospital admissions. This link http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_effect discusses the results of a 15 month study in Jacksonville FL.
" * There was no increase in crime on full moons, according to a statistical analysis by the Jacksonville Police Department. Five of the fifteen full moons had a higher than average rate of crime while ten full moons had a lower than average rate. The higher-than-average days were during warmer months.
* Statistical analysis of visits to Shands Hospital emergency room showed no full moon effect. Emergency room admissions may have more to do with the day of the week.[7]"
the last statement is interesting. Certain days may be busier than others and may vary dependent upon local activities. If there's a large sporting event, concert, St. Patrick's Day or other similar event, which increases EMS calls/hospital admissions and it coincides with a full moon, which is given the greater causation? You might say 'well it's St. Patrick's Day, no surprise there." Until someone mentions that it's a full moon out and then suddenly the uptick is now a result of the full moon and NOT St. Patrick's Day revelers.

This link http://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/moon.html give a great rundown on a number of studies that basically disproves all of the misconceptions you've mentioned.
As for the "sure is quite" comment, think about it: No body ever says that "it sure is quiet" when you're running your ass off from call to call. It's only when it's been (relative to your own station/department/town) quiet that, when some one makes that comment, sure enough hell then does break loose. That's because you're used to it being busy at a certain level. When calls drop below that level, it's "quiet", only when the law of averages kicks in and the call volume goes up do you then seem to see a correlation. Correlation is NOT causation. More people with gray/white hair may die than those with out, that may be a correlation, but gray/white hair didn't cause those people to die, so there is NO causation.

Back to planning and MVA's, there are more MVA's on Fridays and Saturdays, and on halloween, Thanksgiving and New Years Eve. Nothing mystical about that, when you think about it. Also, various types of crime occur more often in summer, July/August than at other times of the year. Not a go-figure either. http://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/moon.html

Statistical data can be effective in providing services. Water treatment plants nation wide know that during commercials and half time during the super bowl, there will be an extraordinary amount of water being flushed in homes nation wide. They can prepare (as best is possible) for this 'event.' Likewise, hot summer days for an extended period of times causes electrical consumption to increase and utility companies to plan for excessive electrical demand. There is hard data to support this pre-planning. But there is no data to support or warrant extra effort or increased manpower during full moons or Friday the 13th's. Those are just cultural myths that fulfill or need for patterns.
Knock on wood.....

Is It a Full Moon?

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