UKC

Breathtaking.. 

"When the sunlight strikes raindrops in the atmosphere, they act like a prism and form a rainbow. The rainbow is a division of white light into various beautiful colors. These take the shape of a long round arch, with its path towering above, and its two extremities apparently beyond the horizon. There is, according to legend, a boiling pot of gold at the one end. People look, but no human ever finds it. When a man looks for something beyond his reach, his friends say he is looking for the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Throughout the centuries people have explained the rainbow in various ways. Nations have accepted it as a miracle without physical explanation. For certain groups it was taken that there would be no more general floods. The Norsemen considered the rainbow as a bridge over which the Gods passed from earth to their dwelling in the sky. Aristotle thought that the rainbow was caused by reflection of the sun’s rays by the rain. The difference is the rainbow depends considerably upon the size of the water drops, and the width of the colored band increases as the size of the drops increases.  "

Who else got chills just hearing that text again...

I hadn't realised that was the standard text everywhere - I just thought the guy in our region who goes round face-fitting all front-line staff each year just really, really loves rainbows!

I've never heard this, what's the story?

I‘ve never heard or read it before, and tbh it reads for me like something written by a stressed 15 year old who only had 30 minutes of googling left to get their essay on rainbows finished on time. So no chills here, sorry!

If memory serves it was/is the text you had to read while being fit tested for a respirator. I imagine there are a lot of us who only came across it when we were being considered for redeployment to Covid wards or expecting to be treating Covid positive patients.

Edit: interesting- just looked it up and it seems the reason it’s used is because within the first few lines it captures all of the phonemes used in English. 

Ok that explains a lot, thanks!

Thanks!

Interesting. Exactly the same speech for my respirator fit tests (nuclear industry). Also lots of marching on the spot and turning the head up, down, left and right.

It sounds like it standard testing across more than healthcare. 

It jumped me right back to being a new student and knowing nothing but being fitted for an ffp3 mask. 

Which, if you'll pardon my ignorance, has what to do with respirator fitting?

I seem to remember something like:
Gas, Gas, Gas!
Some exercises to prove that the respirator hopefully worked and with no leaks.
Remove respirator and state Rank, Name and Number (hoping the instructor doesn't pretend not to hear you).
Stumble out of the chamber in lots of discomfort.
 

That part of the test is about whether or not the mask maintains an airtight seal against your face whilst you are talking, so a short passage of text that makes you move your mouth and face in all the ways that you would during normal speech is exactly what you need.

Pheromones would make more sense.

Yelling 'Gas, Gas, Gas' after masking supposedly purged any chemical agent from the mask.

Quite what a faceful of CS whilst reciting Number, Rank and name actually proved still eludes me.

Judging by the burning razor nicks on my neck under the hood, NBC suits didn't stop particulates, let alone nerve agents.

All in all I prefer the reciting of poems about rainbows with air sampling inside the mask approach!