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Situational Awareness Matters!

Training For Failure Will Impact Decision Making and Situational Awareness

During a “Firefighter Safety Mistakes & Best Practices program recently, I was approached at the break by a training officer who shared with me how he was making the very mistakes I was talking about in class. It turns out, he has been training his firefighters to fail. He described my message as “A wake-up […]

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Episode 238 | Ken Prillaman Interview

  This episode is a flashback episode where Fire Chief Ken Prillaman shared his near-miss story where complacency at an EMS call almost resulted in a catastrophe. Length: 45 minutes   Click the YouTube icon to watch the full VIDEO         __________________________________________________ If you are interested in taking your understanding of situational awareness

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Episode 234 | The Dirty Dozen – Killer Situational Awareness Barriers

This episode discusses some of the most challenging barriers to situational awareness while working in high-risk, high-consequence environments.  This is part 2 so if you missed part 1 – Episode 233 – be sure to check it out first and that will help you understand the challenges we are going to discuss here. Length: 36

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Complacency: A Killer of First Responders

Curiosity killed the cat. But it’s not curiosity that is killing first responders. It’s complacency contributing to flawed situational awareness. What does it mean to be complacent? I could offer you the Webster’s dictionary definition. Instead, I’d like to offer you a definition based on my observations of those who suffer from the affliction. Complacent:

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Crawl, Walk, Run Theory of Skill Development

The inspiration for this article comes from Situational Awareness Matters member and Fire Chief, Todd Johnson, and the members of the Woodbury Fire Department. I was invited to observe a skills-based training evaluation that was more than a year in the making and involved over 100 practice exercises. The crews were dispatched to a structure

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Episode 147 | The Need for Skill Rehearsal

  This episode discusses the importance of rehearsal as a means to strengthen team situational awareness. Length: 38 minutes Click the YouTube icon to listen     _____________________________________________________ If you are interested in taking your understanding of situational awareness and high-risk decision making to a higher level, check out the Situational Awareness Matters Online Academy. CLICK

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Flawed Situational Awareness: A stealth killer – Live Training

Flawed Situational Awareness: A stealth killer Program Length: 4-8 hours Appropriate for: First Responders (Fire, Police, EMS) Supervisors Trainers Training Program Managers Safety Professionals Program Description This program shares the powerful findings of Dr. Gasaway’s extensive research on issues related to first responder decision making and flawed situational awareness.  In his review of hundreds of near-miss

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Penalties and Discipline Will Not Improve Safety

I read with great interest (and concern) an article recently published about how the San Francisco Fire Department is being fined $21,000 by state investigators for violations to safety laws that led to the deaths of two firefighters on June 2. My concern for this action is not an attempt, in any way, to diminish

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Will Denial Make the Problem Better or Worse?

I received the following feedback to a recent Situational Awareness Newsletter. I thought I’d share it and use it as an introduction to this article. Here’s what he had to say: __________ I forwarded your newsletter to every one of my email contacts. The newsletter was especially appropriate  for some of the people on my mailing list

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Episode 81 | Interview with Near-Miss Survivors Tim Kohlbeck and Chase Longmiller

This episode is an interview with Captain Tim Kohlbeck and Lieutenant Chase Longmiller of the Sheboygan Fire Department. On January 30, 2010, Captain Kohlbeck and Lieutenant Longmiller were conducting a primary search when conditions changed rapidly and they were nearly killed. Length: 51 minutes click the YouTube icon to listen     _____________________________________________________ If you

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