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Unexpected Information Can Be a Barrier to Situational Awareness

Leave a Comment / Article, Assumptions, Decision Making, Experience, Human Factors, Intuition, Situational awareness, Size Up, Training / Rich Gasaway

One of the foundations of situational awareness development is being able to make accurate predictions of future events. Making (accurate) predictions is a fairly complex neurological process that relies heavily on gathering information, comprehending the meaning of the information, tapping into your stored knowledge of past experiences, trusting your intuition and using your imagination to […]

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The Communications Specialist Role in Forming Situational Awareness

Leave a Comment / Accountability, Article, Assumptions, Attention Management, Auditory exclusion, Confabulation, Distractions and Interruptions, Emotions, Risk Assessment, Size Up / Rich Gasaway

Some of the least appreciated members of the emergency response team are the communications specialists (in some venues, termed dispatchers). How do I know this? First, I served as a communications specialist (my job title was “dispatcher”) early in my career and I was routinely subjected to criticism and ridicule from responders because the information

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What You Don’t See Can Save You

1 Comment / Article, Assumptions, Attention Management, Auditory exclusion, Decision Making, Human Behavior, Human Factors, Intuition, Meta Awareness, Neuroscience, Prediction, Safety, Size Up, Tacit Knowledge / Rich Gasaway

I dedicate a lot of time during my situational awareness programs ensuring that first responders understand how clues and cues serve as the foundation for developing and maintaining good situational awareness. We also spend considerable time making the connection of how strong situational awareness becomes the foundation for good decision making. For the most part,

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The Two Headed Incident Commander

Leave a Comment / Accountability, Article, Attention Management, Communications, Crew Resource Management, Decision Making, Firefighter Situational Awareness, Human Factors, Leadership, Safety, Situational awareness, Teamwork, Workload Management / Rich Gasaway

A subscriber to the Situational Awareness Matters newsletter sent me a photograph of an emergency incident scene that caused me to reflect on a very important situational awareness lesson. This lesson, unfortunately, is often overlooked and is often implicated as a contributing factor to near-miss and casualty events. Let’s spend a little time examining workload

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Sensory Conflict

Leave a Comment / Article, Communications, Confabulation, Decision Making, Distractions and Interruptions, Human Factors / Rich Gasaway

The process by which situational awareness is formed begins with using your five senses (seeing, hearing, feeling, tasting and smelling) to gather information from your environment. That may arguably be the easiest part of the situational awareness developmental process so long as you are “paying attention” to your environment. Once the senses gather information, it

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Noise Impacts Situational Awareness

1 Comment / Article, Attention Management, Communications, Decision Making, Distractions and Interruptions, Firefighter Situational Awareness, Information overload, Neuroscience, Safety, Situational awareness, Stress / Rich Gasaway

Some time ago I had the honor of visiting and receiving a tour of the Hong Kong Fire Department training center. Many of the props used there are similar to what I have seen in the United States. However, there was one very noticeable difference in the maze they use to train firefighters. Noise! They

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Understanding Stress – Part 4: Hyper Vigilance

5 Comments / Article, Firefighter Situational Awareness, Safety, Situational awareness / Rich Gasaway

Welcome to part four of the series on understanding stress. In the first three segments I talked about the various kinds of stress people in high risk jobs can experience. For seasoned veterans, the information shared likely served as a good review. For newer members, it may have alerted you to the stressors that may

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Missing puzzle pieces

Leave a Comment / Accountability, Article, Auditory exclusion, Decision Making, Expectations, Human Factors, Intuition, Prediction, Repetition, Training / Rich Gasaway

The formation of situational awareness begins with perception. What you perceive becomes the foundation for understanding. What you understand then becomes the primer for prediction: Perception – Understanding – Prediction. This is how situational awareness is formed. Let’s explore one of the barriers to situational awareness that can occur if you shortcut the size-up process.

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Frustration – A barrier to situational awareness

1 Comment / Article, Ego, Emotions, Experience, Frustration / Rich Gasaway

Have you ever found yourself so frustrated at an individual or a situation that you become fixated on that issue? When this happens, oftentimes, we become hyper focused on the individual or the situation and can lose awareness of the bigger picture. When this occurs, critical clues and cues, essential to the formation of situational

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Ignoring the Signs of Danger

7 Comments / Accountability, Article, Communications, Complacency, Crew Resource Management, Culture, Decision Making, Fear, Firefighter Situational Awareness, Human Behavior, Safety, Situational awareness, Size Up, Teamwork, Tunneled Senses / Rich Gasaway

A lesson on situational awareness: The tones drop for a reported residential fire. On the way to the call, dispatch reports multiple calls, confirming a working fire. On arrival the crew sees fire blowing out the B-C corner of the single story, detached residential dwelling. The resident is standing in the front yard. A quick

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