Confusion Archives - Situational Awareness Matters!™

EMDR Treatment for First Responders: Interview with Dr. Deborah Korn – 393

Leave a Comment / Accountability, Anger, Article, Attitude, Cognitive Memory, Communications, Confusion, Culture, Decision Making, Defiance, Denial, Disoriented, Emotions, Expectations, Experience, Explicit Knowledge, Fatigue, Fear, Firefighter Situational Awareness, Frustration, Gut Feeling, Human Behavior, Human Factors, Illness, Intuition, Long-Term Memory, Lost Focus, Mindfulness, Near Miss, Neuroscience, Overload, Overwhelm, Pattern Matching, Perception, Perception Of Reality, Physical Fitness, Prediction, Preoccupation, Pressure, Risk, Risk Management, Safety, SAMatters Radio, Situational awareness, Stress, Tacit Knowledge, Task Fixation, Task Saturation, Teamwork, Workload Management / By Rich Gasaway

This episode is provides first responders a look into a treatment option for Post Traumatic Event Brain Injuries called Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR). Dr. Deborah Korn, PsyD, an internationally renowned pioneer and expert in EMDR Therapy and author of the book Every Memory Deserves Respect: EMDR the Proven Trauma Therapy with the …

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Trooper Down on the Roadway. The Bob Bemis Story – SAM 387

Leave a Comment / Attention Management, Automatic Action, Close Call, Cognitive Memory, Complacency, Confusion, Decision Making, Disoriented, Expectations, Experience, Habits, Human Behavior, Human Error, Human Factors, Judgment, Mindfulness, Near Miss, Pre Arrival Lens, Risk, Risk Management, Safety, SAMatters Radio, Short Term Memory, Situational awareness, Size Up, Task Fixation, Time Distortion, Training, Vigilance, Weather, Workload Management, Worksheets / By Rich Gasaway

This interview is with Bob Bemis, a retired Pennsylvania State Trooper who was struck and severely injured while attending to a vehicle fire on I-81 in eastern Pennsylvania. Sergeant (Ret.) Robert Bemis retired in 2017 as a Supervisor in the Operational Training Division at the Pennsylvania State Police Academy in Hershey. With over 30 years …

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Hands-Free Driving Laws are a Bad Idea

Leave a Comment / Article, Attention Management, Cognitive Memory, Confusion, Decision Making, Firefighter Situational Awareness, Human Behavior, Human Error, Human Factors, Information overload, Lost Focus, Mindfulness, Multitasking, Neuroscience, Overload, Perception, Preoccupation, Risk, Safety, Selective Listening, Situational awareness / By Rich Gasaway

Before you get too upset and refuse to read this article, I’ll ask you to give me just two minutes to explain the situational awareness lesson behind this statement. The first premise is: We must acknowledge (and accept) that it is easy for drivers to get distracted and have their situational awareness impacted while talking …

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Short-Term Memory – SAM 367

Leave a Comment / Checklists, Confusion, Decision Making, Defiance, Expectations, Firefighter Situational Awareness, Frustration, Human Behavior, Human Error, Human Factors, Information overload, Judgment, Mindfulness, Multitasking, Neuroscience, Overload, Overwhelm, Risk, Risk Assessment, Risk Management, Safety, SAMatters Radio, Selective Listening, Short Term Memory, Simulation, Situational awareness, Size Up, Task Fixation, Task Saturation, Vigilance, Workload Management, Worksheets / By Rich Gasaway

In this episode, we preview the short-term memory chapter from the book, How Smart Workers Use Situational Awareness to Improve Safety. Short-term memory can create a formidable challenge to situational awareness. Long-term memory is huge, some might argue it’s limitless. Short-term memory, not so much. The capacity of the average person’s short-term memory is about …

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19 Ways Communications can Impact SA – SAM 359

Leave a Comment / Auditory exclusion, Checklists, Cognitive Memory, Command Location, Command Presence, Command Support, Communications, Confabulation, Confusion, Crew Resource Management, Culture, Decision Making, Disoriented, Expectations, Experience, Firefighter Situational Awareness, Human Behavior, Human Error, Human Factors, Information overload, Interruptions, Mental Models, Mindfulness, Miscommunications, Multitasking, Neuroscience, Overload, Personnel location, Pre Arrival Lens, Progress Reports, Radios, Risk Assessment, Risk Management, Safety, SAMatters Radio, Selective Listening, Sensory Conflict, Shared Mental Models, Situational awareness, Size Up, Standard Operating Procedures/Guidelines, Technology, Training, Vigilance / By Rich Gasaway

In this episode we discuss 19 ways that communications issues can impact Situational Awareness. First responders spend a lot of time together, on calls, in the station, and in many cases in social settings outside of work. All of this interaction builds relationships that allow responders to trust their lives to each other. We’ll …

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Contact with a 33kV Electric Line. The Sioux Falls Fire Department Story – SAM 357

Leave a Comment / Accountability, Assumptions, Close Call, Communications, Complacency, Confusion, Crew Resource Management, Culture, Decision Making, Distractions and Interruptions, Equipment, Error Creep, Expectations, Experience, Fear, Firefighter Situational Awareness, Habits, Human Behavior, Human Error, Human Factors, Judgment, Lost Focus, Mindfulness, Miscommunications, Mission, Mission Myopia, Multitasking, Near Miss, Neuroscience, Over Confident, Personnel location, Prediction, Preoccupation, Risk, Risk Assessment, Risk Management, Routines, Safety, SAMatters Radio, Situational awareness, Situational Readiness, Task Fixation, Teamwork, Training, Vigilance / By Rich Gasaway

This episode interviews four members of the Sioux Falls (South Dakota) Fire Department who experienced a near-miss event when the platform on Truck 7 came into contact with a 33 kV transmission line during a routine truck check at the station. First responders spend a lot of time together, on calls, in the station, …

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Five Situational Awareness Lessons from a LODD Incident – SAM 354

Leave a Comment / Accountability, Assumptions, Attitude, Auditory exclusion, Automatic Action, Benchmarks, Building Construction, Close Call, Command Location, Command Presence, Command Support, Communications, Competency, Complacency, Confusion, Crew Resource Management, Culture, Decision Making, Denial, Disoriented, Distractions and Interruptions, Emotions, Equipment, Error Creep, Excited, Expectations, Experience, Explicit Knowledge, Firefighter Situational Awareness, Goals, Gut Feeling, Human Behavior, Human Error, Human Factors, Hyper Vigilance, Independent Goal Setting - Freelancing, Information overload, Judgment, Leadership, Line of Duty Death, Lost Focus, Mayday, Mayday and RIT, Mental Models, Meta Awareness, Mindfulness, Miscommunications, Mission, Mission Myopia, Neuroscience, PAR, Perception, Perception Of Reality, Personal Protective Equipment, Personnel location, Prediction, Preoccupation, Progress Reports, Radios, Risk, Risk Assessment, Risk Management, Safety, SAMatters Radio, Shared Mental Models, Situational awareness, Situational Readiness, Size Up, Staffing, Standard Operating Procedures/Guidelines, Tacit Knowledge, Task Fixation, Teamwork, Vigilance, Workload Management / By Rich Gasaway

On June 2, 2011, the San Francisco Fire Department suffered the tragic loss of 2 firefighters at 133 Berkeley Way. The episode shares some valuable situational awareness lessons from this tragic incident. The San Francisco Fire Department conducted an internal review of the incident and issued a 156-page report on their findings. Many of the …

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The Myth of Multitasking – SAM 346

Leave a Comment / Assumptions, Attention Management, Automatic Action, Checklists, Cognitive Memory, Competency, Confusion, Decision Making, Disoriented, Distractions and Interruptions, Expectations, Frustration, Human Behavior, Human Error, Human Factors, Information overload, Interruptions, Judgment, Long-Term Memory, Lost Focus, Mind Drift, Mindfulness, Multitasking, Neuroscience, Overload, Overwhelm, Pattern Matching, Perception, Perception Of Reality, Prediction, Preoccupation, Risk, Risk Assessment, Risk Management, Safety, SAMatters Radio, Selective Listening, Short Term Memory, Situational awareness, Task Fixation, Task Saturation, Vigilance, Worksheets / By Rich Gasaway

This episode explores the challenges workers face while operating in dynamically changing conditions that require sharing attention to multiple, concurrent activities – a.k.a., multitasking. If you are the type of person who can work on your notebook, listen to music on your iPod, talk on your cell phone and text message at the same time, …

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The Dave Martin Story – Flashback to Episode 45 – SAM 343

Leave a Comment / Accountability, Assumptions, Bravado, Communications, Competency, Complacency, Confusion, Crew Resource Management, Decision Making, Equipment, Expectations, Experience, Fear, Gut Feeling, Habits, Human Behavior, Human Error, Human Factors, Intuition, Lost Focus, Mindfulness, Overwhelm, PAR, Perception, Perception Of Reality, Personal Protective Equipment, Personnel location, Prediction, Preoccupation, Pressure, Progress Reports, Risk, Risk Assessment, Risk Management, Routines, Safety, SAMatters Radio, Shared Mental Models, Situational awareness, Situational Readiness, Stress, Tacit Knowledge, Task Fixation, Teamwork, Training / By Rich Gasaway

On August 11, 2007, Captain Martin and his partner were over run by a fast-moving wildland fire. On retreat, his partner became entangled on a barbed wire fence. Captain Martin used a utility knife to cut away his partner’s ensnarled clothing and they both narrowly escaped death. Description Dave Martin’s crew was assigned …

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Confabulated Realities Impact Situational Awareness – SAM 342

Leave a Comment / Assumptions, Automatic Action, Biases, Confabulation, Confusion, Decision Making, Denial, Disoriented, Expectations, Experience, Explicit Knowledge, Hallucinations, Human Behavior, Human Error, Human Factors, Judgment, Mental Models, Mindfulness, Miscommunications, Over Confident, Over Staffing, Pattern Matching, Perception, Perception Of Reality, Safety, SAMatters Radio, Selective Listening, Situational awareness / By Rich Gasaway

This episode explores how your brain can make up, or confabulate, its own reality. A confabulated reality is one that we believe to be real but, in actuality, it is made up in our brain. The problem with this is we rarely are able to distinguish between a confabulated reality and true reality until something …

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