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Austinrealtor handled this very well.

During the recognition phase of an emergency, most people spend time on denial - "That can't really be what it sounds / looks like, could it?". They do this for 2 reasons:

1. They don't understand at the emotional level that anything can in fact happen anytime and anywhere.
2. They don't want to look foolish if it turns out to be something other than an emergency.

The hesitation eats up critical seconds or even minutes that are desperately needed to successfully solve the problem when it is a real emergency, and often results in the individual being overwhelmed by events that have progressed to far and too quickly to be stopped at that point.

By the time denial is no longer possible and they are forced to realize it is in fact an emergency, that recognition often sends their heart rate well into the stratosphere and the resulting biological impact reduces their thinking capacity to the point where they aren't able to successfully come up with a viable response. Couple that with no pre thought out plan, and these folks are in deep muck.

Austinrealtor responded exactly the opposite way. He recognized immediately that it could in fact be a home invasion, and he reacted accordingly with a response he had almost certainly considered before (otherwise it would have taken longer to make the decision to act).

From where he was when the door flew open, there was no way to reliably establish that it wasn't an emergency, and if he had waited for events to play out in time, if it was, he'd be beyond the point of recovery. He wisely treated it like an emergency until it was proved to be something else - a perfect response.

Although some folks who've never dealt with real emergencies would mock him for being "paranoid", he clearly took the best possible course of action. If it had turned out to be a home invasion, he was well on his way to stopping it successfully. If it turned out to be something innocuous, as it did, no harm, no foul - a good practice run and an opportunity for after action review to see if anything could have been done better - e.g., moving wife and kids into a locked room while he investigated. (I don't know the layout of his house so I don't know if this would have been feasible or not - it's just an example).

Thanks, Austinrealtor, for sharing this situation which highlights lots of elements worthy of our thoughtful consideration.