QUESTION:

Sometimes it is hard to tell what it looks like to be socially distanced at six feet apart. What are some good examples? M Wicks

ANSWER:

Thank you for reaching out to us M Wicks!  Since we make every effort to be socially distanced (or physically distanced as some prefer) at Dankmeyer as well as when we are outside the office, we understand that sometimes it can be hard to tell. We thought that we would offer a look at some examples you might come across when you visit Dankmeyer, some common household items, and also a few unusual items.

We asked Art Ross, Fabrication Technician and Marlies Beerli Cabell, CPO to take a good look around for some examples at Dankmeyer. In any Dankmeyer office (or any medical type office) you might see items like wheelchairs, exam tables, mirrors and assistive devices like walkers. We found that an exam table is six feet long. You have to put two wheelchairs one behind the other to get six feet, or three walkers side by side. A mirror which is marked into grids is also six feet tall. If you have ever attended any training or lectures at Dankmeyer, you know that the tables in the conference room are six feet long! Mark Hopkins, Angie Bryl and Marlies added another image - using their hockey sticks to demonstrate what it would look like for people to stand six feet away on either side of Marlies. Some of our staff gathered outdoors for Limb Loss Awareness Month in April to demonstrate standing six feet apart.

Art explored some at home and found some examples of things that measured six feet. He found that a refrigerator and lamp post were generally six feet tall, a shower curtain was six feet wide, and perhaps most importantly, his dog leash was six feet long. Interestingly, the sidewalks in his community are three feet wide in three foot sections, so two sections measure six feet!

Art decide to further explore the concept with his grandson. They experimented with how many Lego bricks to connect (191), how many cereal boxes you had to stack to get six feet (6), how many album covers to lay out (if anyone remembers those, 6), and how many rolls of paper towels to stack (6 stacked are 6 inches short of 6 feet!). In addition they discovered that the kitchen tiles were eight inches and so nine of those made for six feet. In the “new math”, does that mean that 191 Legos = 6 cereal boxes = 6 album covers = 9 kitchen tiles?

And last, but not least, we asked a six year old what she thought six feet might look like and she said “Far enough to not get wet from a water balloon.” Thank you, Emma. A good thing to imagine.

Do you have a question you would like to Ask Us? Email us at info@dankmeyer.com.