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Rich Gasaway

Richard B. Gasaway served 33 years on the front lines as a firefighter, EMT-Paramedic and fire chief. He earned his Doctor of Philosophy degree while studying how individuals, teams and organizations develop and maintain situational awareness and make decisions in high stress, high consequence, time compressed environments. Dr. Gasaway is widely considered to be one of the nation's leading authorities on first responder situational awareness and decision making. His material has been featured and referenced in more than 400 book chapters, research projects, journal articles, podcasts, webinars and videos. His research and passion to improve workplace safety through improved situational awareness is unrivaled. Dr. Gasaway's leadership and safety programs have been presented to more than 42,000 first responders, emergency managers, medical providers, military personnel, aviation employees, industrial workers and business leaders throughout North America, Europe, Asia and Australia.

Episode 66: Dave Dodson Interview

    In this episode I sit down with Dave Dodson, the creator of the Art of Reading Smoke Program and co-author of the Art of Reading Buildings book to discuss his passion for helping firefighter read smoke and buildings. Length: 45 minutes click the YouTube icon to listen _____________________________________________________ If you are interested in taking your […]

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Unexpected information can be a barrier to situational awareness

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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Episode 65: Conducting the 360 size-up

    Situational awareness starts with capturing clues and cues in your environment (perception) and then understanding what those clues and cues mean (comprehension). At a structure fire, the process of capturing information should involve a complete 360-degree size-up of the scene. Many departments have policies that stipulate the completion of a 360-degree size up. Yet,

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Episode 64: Interview with Close Call Survivor Nick Miller

    On Christmas Day in 2010 the Valley Fire & Rescue Department responded to a residential dwelling fire that resulted in two close call survivor events. Length: 55 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

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Episode 63: SA Q &A Session

    During SAMatters Tour events there are lots of discussion happening among attendees and some great questions being asked. This episode addresses some of the questions fielded during live events. Length: 27 minutes click the YouTube icon to listen     _____________________________________________________ If you are interested in taking your understanding of situational awareness and high-risk decision

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Unpredictable staffing: A barrier to situational awareness

The process of developing situational awareness starts with capturing information using the five senses. Then, the information must be understood. And finally, once the information is understood, a prediction is made about future outcomes. This process can be challenged when staffing is unpredictable.

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Episode 62: Review of the most popular close call interviews

    What can you learn from someone who has survived a close call? The answer is… A LOT. When I launched this show in April 2014, the purpose was, as it remains, to help first responders improve situational awareness and decision making while operating in high stress, high consequence environments. This mission has been supplemented

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Episode 61: Begin with the end in mind: A situational awareness best practice

    One of the essential components of well-developed situational awareness is being able to accurately predict the future. This prediction should be made during the initial scene size up and then it should be updated often as the incident progresses. In this episode we discuss the need to begin with the end in mind will

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Episode 60: Explaining the Dynamic Decision Making Process

  On this episode we discuss how to make decisions in dynamically changing environments and the importance of using situational awareness as the foundation for making good decisions under stress. It is the decisions that first responders make, while operating in high stress, high consequence, time compressed environments (using situational awareness) that drive successful or unsuccessful

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