If one has to consider one of the most chaotic places to be during an earthquake, the operating table of your own vasectomy is surely up there on the list.
For Justin Allen from Horsham, Pennsylvania, this was his exact reality on Friday when the New York City metropolitan area and its outskirts were shaken by a 4.8 quake. The earthquake was centered near Lebanon, New Jersey, according to the US Geological Survey, though people reported feeling its effects across New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts and Pennsylvania.
“I thought maybe a train was passing by or it was just something that happens at that office, even when the doctor was like ‘I think this is an earthquake.’ I figured he was messing with me, but he had to stop because everything was shaking,” Allen told the Guardian.
Allen said the doctor operating on him “put the tools down for a moment”.
“We talked about how we’d never forget where we were at that moment,” he said.
According to the Mayo Clinic, many vasectomy procedures are done using local anesthesia, which means the patient will be awake and have medicine to numb the surgery area.
Asked if an earthquake during such a sensitive procedure concerned him, Allen showed pure bravery.
“I really wasn’t worried because he had walked me through every step of the procedure, so it mostly felt like a brief speed bump and we were mostly just calm and laughing as the room shook,” he explained.
For now, Allen said he’s on the mend: “Everything turned out great. I feel about as good as I possibly can as the numbing is starting to wear off.”
While the quake’s impact seems to have been minimal as of late Friday morning, it’s likely not going to be something Allen will forget any time soon. He fired off a tweet shortly after the quake was felt, sharing his inconvenient locale with the masses. It quickly went viral.
“It’s always an experience going viral on Twitter. Lots of laughs,” Allen said of the responses he has received, noting there has been “lots of hate as well”.
Still, he says, “there is a ton of great earnest humor in the replies as well, which I’m thankful for”.
As of late Friday morning and early afternoon, the governor, Kathy Hochul, announced there were no injuries or structural damage as a result of the quake.
In response to his initial tweet, Allen’s wife, Bridget, shared a snapshot of him beside a sign reading: Urology Health Surgery Center. She also quipped in a follow-up tweet that the earthquake signaled to her and Justin that “this was a ‘sign’” that “we should never ever ever have another child ever again … ever.”
Allen’s viral tweet was far from the only one to have sent aftershocks through social media. Many took the north-eastern quake as an opportunity to share some jokes on X.
“I AM FINE,” wrote the Empire State Building’s official account.
“I was talking to my psychiatrist when the earthquake hit but i didn’t want her to put me on antipsychotics so i just didn’t acknowledge it,” one person wrote.
“If I die from an earthquake in a midtown Duane Reade, I’m going to be pretty pissed,” someone else said.
Alongside a still of Carrie Bradshaw musing at her computer in an episode of Sex and the City, another person quipped: “as a 4.7 magnitude earthquake hit manhattan i couldn’t help but wonder ... was my relationship with big structurally sound enough to withstand the impact?”